


Hawk

by MouSanRen



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Chinese American Inside Jokes, Coco too I guess, First Love, M/M, Mike Wazowski is here too, Puppy Love, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Young Love, crawling out of retirement to post this garbage fire, happened, humor words, light violence but by nie mingjue's definition of light, percabeth shows up later i swear maybe, slow burn wangxian because these idiots are idiots, the lwj/ jyl friendship we were robbed of, this just
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 63,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24256528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MouSanRen/pseuds/MouSanRen
Summary: Nico Di Angelo gets a new brother, and Lan Zhan may or may not be in love with him. Lan Huan is nice enough to not say it out loud.
Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 194
Kudos: 235





	1. Son of a...

_ Dedicated to Booky. _

_ — _

The new boy could shoot better than Wen Ning.

Wei Ying, everyone called him. The “ying” stands for “baby” or “infant”; not “hawk,” as he first thought.

Strange. It was more a nickname than a proper name, but one look at his boyish, sunshine face, and it was evident that something more proper would be unsettlingly serious. He had a big, stupid grin that was equal parts coy and...more stupid.

“Earth to Lan Zhan.”

He startled. “Ge.”

Lan Huan smiled at him indulgently, which Lan Zhan knew to be his big-brother smile before he thrashed him like a normal sibling. “If you’re so into him, why don’t you go make friends with him?”

“Ge...,” he said, only changing the intonation half a dial.

Lan Huan’s smile changed serious, just a little bit. His eyes flicked towards the new boy, whose arrow flew across the sky, and struck the target dead—because of Wei Ying’s hawk-like eyes.

“A-Zhan,” he said. “You’ll be claimed someday, and move to a cabin other than Hermes’s, but they are still good to us for taking us in. And, it  _ is  _ prudent to have friends in other cabins. He’s already made friends with those two from Apollo’s cabin.”

Lan Zhan felt his lips thin.

He didn’t respond, didn’t need to. But when it was his turn to shoot, and the new boy whooped for him and called him, “Lan-er!” he did not ignore him; he spared him a glance, and then refocused on what was important there and then.

His arrow thudded into the target. Dead and center.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Wei Ying said to a boy next to him—someone Lan Zhan had seen with him before, attached at the hip—“let me go again, Jiang Cheng. Let me go, let me go, let me gooooooo.”

“My  _ gods,”  _ said the boy, rolling his eyes. “Fine, if it’ll make you stop whining.”

Wei Ying whooped; Lan Zhan hardly registered as he brushed past him to reach the spot he had been standing in seconds ago, because he was busy  _ registering Wei Ying brushing past him.  _ “That was a good shot, Lan-er,” he said.

Lan Zhan bit. “How do you know my name?”

“Who doesn’t know the great and refined Lan Zhan, brother of Lan Huan, who sleeps across my bunk in the cabin?” Wei Ying asked, eyes sparkling with mirth, like a naiad’s. “They say you’re the next Percy Jackson.”

Lan Zhan wasn’t sure that he liked the sound of that.

Wei Ying winked at him, like a naiad trying to seduce him, and turned back to face the target, nocking his arrow. “看好了蓝湛“，he said casually, in their shared language.

Without realizing it—no one else was shooting on the range, all eyes on Wei Ying, so of course he would too—he obeyed.

Wei Ying had chosen a classic bow, all wood and strung with something hand-coiled. He stretched it back, all angles between the bow, the taut string, the cock of his arm. The feather of the arrow moved over his profile. It slid past his eye.

With a smirk, he released.

That was why he had chosen to take up Lan Zhan’s target...before anyone could collect the arrow Lan Zhan had shot. Wei Ying’s arrow touched the end of his in the blink of an eye; in another blink, it had pierced his through.

Wei Ying was not done. Before any demigod had the chance to bring their hands together, he had pulled and fired again, twice, three times, until there was a neat stack of arrows pierced together in a pile against the center of the target.

“You can clap now,” he told the stunned demigods gathered around the range.

They did, breaking into claps. Wei Ying turned back, casting another glance at Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan felt his breath catch in his throat.

—

It was the first in a series of episodes in which Wei Ying played a game of  _ Rile Him Up,  _ with Lan Zhan as the main goal. And each time, it stirred up a raw feeling in him that made him go absolutely mad.

“He seems to want to make friends with you,” Lan Huan commented on their outing for strawberries.

Lan Zhan stopped their trudge up the hill—glide, more like, he refused to let his back bow more than necessary even on an upward incline—to sweep the horizon, the valley in the sunset. It was an orange sunset today, drowning Camp Half-Blood more than the sparkling sea in the distance could reach.

“He spilled my soup yesterday,” Lan Zhan said, and his older brother was kind enough to not add,  _ But he immediately offered you his entire lunch and claimed he wasn’t hungry anyway.  _ No, he just let it hang silently in the air instead. Lan Zhan had the best older brother in the world.

“He can be thoughtless at times, but still so thoughtful,” Lan Huan finally said, and this thought must have circulated in his mind for quite a while, because he said it after they had picked a basketful of strawberries in comfortable silence.

Sometimes, Lan Zhan thought he should be more talkative when they had these moments together; his brother was spending more and more time with that Meng Yao, also unclaimed, and if he were Wei Ying, he would probably be begging for Lan Huan’s attention back the way Wei Ying did Jiang Cheng. But he had such a secure attachment to his brother, who had been here when Lan Zhan was born silently as he lived. Lan Huan could go far, far away, but he would always come back for Lan Zhan to treat him with cold indifference. That was his love language, after all.

_ Why does Wei Ying want  _ my _ attention? _

_ Why does Wei Ying cringe at every mention of Cerberus, Hades’s hound? _

_ Why does Jiang Cheng keep telling Wei Ying not to bother me, but then roll his eyes and look at me like  _ I  _ was the one bothering  _ them?

_ Why am I thinking so much about Wei Ying? _

“Didi,” Lan Huan said.

Out of it, Lan Zhan found his brother’s gaze. They were almost back at the Hermes cabin. “Ge.”

He just smiled. Lan Zhan was not sure whether to be annoyed or endeared. Well, it was his brother—so both.

The Hermes cabin was so loud this time of day, when everyone ought to be tired right before bed. But instead, it was crowded, and bustling, and there was one particularly guilty culprit in the middle of it all. Its name was Wei Ying, and its laughter could power an entire skyscraper in Monsters Inc.

Which he, of course, was narrating in great detail.

“Mike Wazowski  _ is  _ a Cyclops with amnesia!” he argued, while Jiang Cheng hovered in the background, rolling his eyes.

“Mike Wazowski took his girlfriend on a date to a sushi restaurant,” said another of the boys—Nie Huaisang, an actual, born son of Hermes. There had been a vague sense that he and his brother, Nie Mingjue would take on the legacy of the Stoll brothers as Cabin Eleven’s co-head counselors...until Mingjue had been claimed by Ares.

It was none of Lan Zhan’s business, but everyone wondered what kind of woman had managed to snag both Ares and Hermes as fathers to her children.

“Therefore,” Huaisang was continuing, seeming almost offended, “why would he eat fish? Poseiden’s pretty much all of them’s dad, that’s like eating his brother!”

“Well, yeah,” Wei Ying fired back, “that’s why he doesn’t know. Because amnesia!”

“The body remembers when the mind forgets!” Huaisang responded. “J.L. Moreno, the creator of psychodrama.”

“How do you even know that, when you can’t read?” Wei Ying fairly shrieked, obviously seconds away from calling his friend a  _ nerd. _

“You and I both have dyslexia, you know we can still read a little!” Huaisang actually shrieked.

Lan Huan cleared his throat.

All heads turned towards them. Lan Zhan wanted to be the younger brother rolling his eyes right now—Lan Huan had stage presence when he wanted to, didn’t he? But he had been taught to never, ever, ever roll his eyes, so he settled for giving everyone the cold shoulder as he walked away instead.

“We have procured some strawberries,” Lan Huan said goodnaturedly, and the entire cabin exploded in the sudden rush to gently wrest them from him before they were all gone.

“Me first!” Huaisang said, drowning somewhere in the middle. “I want to give some to my brother!”

“The Ares kids can pick their own strawberries!” Jiang Cheng huffed, strolling back to his bunk. He slept under Wei Ying. Wei Ying had the top bunk. And Lan Zhan had the next top bunk. They were next to each other.

Below him, the entire, considerable mass of Hermes demigods had turned into a sea of sardines. Had he and Lan Huan even picked enough?

Out of that sea exploded Wei Ying. “There aren’t anymore!” he exclaimed to the crowd that he was probably trampling his way out of right now. “No more, no more...sorry, guys...”

“You just put them all in your pocket!” one of the Hermes kids shouted. There was a split second of silence, before the shrieking cabin kids flung themselves at him. Those shrieks turned from accusing to disappointed as they realized...surprise, his pockets were flat and empty against his legs.

They pulled back, leaving him blinking innocently. “Why would I do that?” Wei Ying asked, sounding offended. “Why would I get more than my share? I don’t even like strawberries.”

“Uh-huh,” some of the demigods said, disbelievingly, but there was nothing else they could do. They drifted back to their beds, or the front stoop of the cabin, cradling their precious red-flavored catch of the day.

It was only once Wei Ying was left to his own devices that Lan Zhan turned his head to see him huddled with his brother and sister in the corner, gently pressing strawberries into their hands. Squint, and he could see them rolling from his sweater sleeves.

That clever little...

Truly, he was a son of Hermes. Lan Zhan could not wait until he found out who his father was, and he could finally go someplace where he would not have to hear Wei Ying snoring at night.

And yet, it was nine. Wei Ying was still huddled in the corner, giggling and whispering with his siblings. These sounds were keeping Lan Zhan awake, though his eyelids were heavy and he wanted to give in to that lull.

It was not until Wei Ying clambered his way into the bunk across Lan Zhan’s that his soft, happy snores filled their side of the cabin.

As he finally fell asleep, Lan Zhan realized that he had familiarized himself with the sound of Wei Ying’s snores.

—

Spring had finally burst into a full, ripened warmth that was gentle to them even at night. Wei Ying walked around in short sleeves now, which meant that he had to find a better way to hide things.

Lan Zhan sat by his brother as food appeared on his plate.

“Ah, your favorite! Watery soup!”

He twitched. “Wei Ying!” he said sternly, just barely stopping himself from covering his soup with his hands.

“Ah, I’m not gonna spill it this time, promise, promise!” Wei Ying said. “I said sorry for last time too, right? You can even have some of my food this time around! Or I could climb over and get some strawberries for you right now.”

Lan Zhan could feel his brother’s gaze on them both. “That will not be necessary,” he gritted out, picking up his spoon with deliberate care and slowness. And that would be the end of that.

According to him, not Wei Ying, who could not be stopped, “Ah, but those strawberries you and your brother picked the other day were so good. And you never got to taste them? What’s the point of a climb like that if you don’t even get a little bit? I could return the favor.”

“That will not be necessary,” Lan Zhan repeated. Maybe it would make him finally go away.

And on it went, Lan Zhan falling silent, Wei Ying bothering him still until his sister called him away.

“Sorry about that,” Jiang Cheng said, sounding not very sorry at all. “He’s adopted.”

Suddenly, there was a hush.

Lan Zhan could not describe it if he tried—the chattering camp fell silent, and he was compelled to follow. Nothing had happened. No sudden appearance of anything in particular. But he was sitting there next to his brother, all at once heavily aware of an uncomfortable silence.

He exchanged a glance with Lan Huan. It was not the sort of silence that led them to think there was some imminent attack oncoming, but he tensed slightly all the same.

At the front, Chiron stood, frowning slightly. He opened his mouth, but needn’t have bothered.

It became cold—the kind that felt like opening a refrigerator too fast on a steamy summer day. Lan Zhan was used to the coolness of clouds, but nothing like this. It was bone-deep, and that was how he knew who had come.

Not very far from him at all was Wei Ying, and Lan Zhan twisted his neck to see him let go of his siblings’ hands; he was standing between them, now staring straight at Lan Zhan as though confused. His eyebrows furrowed as he opened his mouth to speak, but for the first time, nothing came out. Black smoke furled gently from his clothes, rising above him, curling its tendons around them all. Lan Zhan refused to recoil when one touched him, and his unflinching bravery was met with a brief sense of...something. Resentment, maybe. Something dark. Something deeper than he could understand, though he understood perfectly.

As the wisps caressed his hands, his face, whatever smoke rose evaporated into a cloud above Wei Ying, whose eyes still never left Lan Zhan’s. He was stark, stark pale next to the black, and Lan Zhan was sure he looked much the same way.

Eventually, the cloud coiled into a shape. A crescent, though it stood like a tree.

A hush, for real this time.

Chiron trotted forward.

“All hail the son of Hades,” he said.

Wei Ying’s eyebrows dragged all the way up into his scattered bangs, as he finally blinked and looked around at anyone else that was not Lan Zhan.

Hades...the children of Hades rarely ever led happy lives, and yet here was Wei Ying, the brightest mark of light in anyone’s life.

But his large, puzzled doe eyes snapped back to Lan Zhan. Some part of them, Lan Zhan realized with a startle, was accepting. He even saw the hint of a smirk scratching the edge of his lip, like the revelation no longer troubled him. Like he embraced it, was excited for it.

“A-Zhan.”

Lan Huan. And, not just him, or Wei Ying—when Lan Zhan finally looked around, everyone was staring at him now. And he saw why, because his brother must be mirroring him: The two of them were surrounded by a reddish-brown glow, that slowly melted away. Nothing had changed otherwise, but there was viscerally something different—like his brother stood taller, his chin tilted higher.

“Oh,” someone gasped.

“Ah,” said Chiron. “All hail the sons of Aphrodite.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: The “ying” in Wei Ying is a homophone for “hawk” and by extension, “eagle.” The more you know. I will be abusing the hell out of this wordplay.
> 
> This all started because of a talk I had with my good friend, whom I converted, and who I will love forever and ever. Crackhead culture? Mayhaps.]


	2. The Sons of Apollo

Lan Zhan had trouble sleeping that night.

Not because of the new environment. The Aphrodite cabin beds were softer, more luxurious. His brother slept in the bunk beneath him, of course. There was nothing different, and whatever was different was heightened into something more comfortable.

But he had trouble sleeping that night.

“A-Zhan,” said his brother.

“Ge,” Lan Zhan said, feeling guilty, “am I keeping you up?” He had been tossing and turning more than usual, which is to say he had shifted his hands about five times now. He hoped that moving into Aphrodite’s cabin would not suddenly start a pattern of insomnia in him.

“Not at all,” Lan Huan said kindly, which Lan Zhan took to mean, _Maybe, only a little, but that does not matter at all._ “What are you thinking?”

Lan Zhan rarely vocalized his thoughts; he did not need to. Least of all to Lan Huan, who knew him the moment he came into the world, knew his thoughts before they were formed into any language humans speak.

But, anyway, that was why it was important to respond when he wanted to, honest to gods, talk.

“I did not expect our mother to be Aphrodite,” he rumbled, finally. If any of his new sleeping siblings woke up and heard, and were offended, then he did not care.

“True,” his brother responded softly. “I have thought that we could be sons of Athena, or perhaps, truly, sons of Hermes. Something about how much time you have been spending on the hills lately.”

Lan Zhan did not respond. He liked the feeling of the wind on his cheeks. It made him think that he was the son of Hermes, who flitted through the sky, or even a minor deity—someone who took care of the clouds and pushed them swaying through the sky like a boat down a lake. Something that connected his grounded self to something higher. It was quiet up there.

“I would have thought that Wei Ying would have been a son of Apollo,” Lan Huan continued. “That his father would claim him because he taught Wen Ning—of all people—to perfect his shots at the archery range today. He seems more sun than death.

“A-Zhan,” he said. “Perhaps a good nighttime walk will be good. It will tire you out.”

Although Lan Zhan did not respond, he did as his brother suggested; before he truly registered what he was doing, his shoes were on, he had tapped the post of Lan Huan’s bunk on his way out, and then he was in the open, the night still warm, but with a touch of coolness too. The hills promised more.

He decided not to go near the edge of the border; not because he did not want to see the outside world for a moment, which he did, but because Peleus was still there, and he wanted to truly, truly be alone tonight.

Gliding up the hill, he stopped when he could glide no more, and stood overlooking the valley. The lights were off; anything he could see was due to the moon. It cast everything into black, but blue as well.

The shirt he had chosen to wear to bed was white; when he looked down, that was all he saw of himself too. So different from the city mere hours away from Long Island Sound, the city that blasted all the colors of his brother’s light blue clothes into sharp relief.

His peace, however, was shattered by the smattering of grass sounds coming from his left.

With a silent sigh, he turned towards it. It could not be...of course it was.

Wei Ying was leaping and bounding up the hill, hands flailing in the most deft way possible. Was he coordinated or not?—Lan Zhan could never tell with him. But Wei Ying stuttered to a halt when he realized just who he was mere five feet away from running into. Uncoordinated. Uncoordinated, indeed, though he shot arrows so well it made the newer demigods quiver like the fletching on them.

He grinned, awkwardly and excitedly. Everything about this boy clashed, right down to his emotions. And even to his parentage... 

“Wow, what a coincidence,” he said. “Lan Zhan, are you out here to admire the moon too? You son of Aphrodite, you,” he teased, tugging at his sleeve, like he had a right to touch him.

When Lan Zhan flicked his eyes downward, Wei Ying jerked back with a sheepish giggle. That was the quickest anyone had ever reacted to his gestures...other than Lan Huan, of course.

“Ah-ha,” Wei Ying said, mostly through his nose. “That’s so romantic of you, Lan-er. Out alone, on a night like this, and yet I run into you...”

Lan Zhan sent him a glare, which is to say he intensified the tension around his eyes, and Wei Ying laughed, again making that sound through his nose.

“My gods, Lan-er, you’re too easy to tease,” he said. “Do you think you could teach me that look sometime? Think of all the monsters it could chase away, I wouldn’t even need to fight.”

“Why would you not want to fight?” The words were out before Lan Zhan could really hold them back; perhaps it was because it was just so long past his bedtime, and his self-control was less than desired.

Oh no. _I am making conversation with Wei Ying,_ he thought, scandalized.

“Fighting’s fun, of course,” Wei Ying said, without preamble. It was as though he had thought about this for a long time. “But think of the possibilities when you get creative. Using fear tactics. In the old days, they used to fight fully naked. If _I_ was being charged at by a man with his dong hanging out, I’d run for my fucking life.”

Lan Zhan did not deign to say anything else. But Wei Ying was on a roll now.

“Ah, hey, there might be a little bit of Hades in me after all. But you being Aphrodite’s son? I guess because your brother _is_ the one everyone ogles after in camp. He’s probably the hottest boy in Camp Half-Blood.”

It took so, so much self-control to not wipe off the shit-eating grin that crossed Wei Ying’s face, and it had more to do with the strange, horrible, weird, traumatizing realization that the people had unanimously voted his own brother the _hottest boy in camp._

“Looks are not the only part of being Aphrodite’s children,” Lan Zhan said, affronted.

“Well, what else is there, then?” Wei Ying countered.

Lan Zhan had not considered the possibility of being one of the goddess of love’s children at all; nothing in him screamed the sort of reckless abandon with which she—his _mother—_ pursued love. In Lan Huan, even less so. His brother kept his careful heart close to his chest, though he let anyone and everyone get a good, long look at it. They were not the same.

But, as his new cabin leader had led him there after dinner tonight, she had told him something her predecessor had said, “Aphrodite isn’t just about love. She’s about passion. That’s mixed in with the root of love. That’s the base of what makes any human being.”

So, there was more to his new mother than just lovesick songs and his brother’s good looks.

“Hm,” he said.

“Aiyaa,” Wei Ying clapped him on the back, like he could not keep his hands off of him. “Well, we’ll see in the future, won’t we? I got a new brother, even though he’s kind of a bummer. He’s cute, though, in a scene kid way.”

 _Scene kid...?_ Lan Zhan tucked that away to ask his brother, or Chiron, about later. He could not keep up with the trends; that sounded exhausting.

Wei Ying, meanwhile, _was_ the trend. He poked at Lan Zhan. “While we’re here, I’ll share it with you. I reversed the spell on one of Mr. D’s grape juices...ta-da!” He seemed to materialize the small bottle of wine from thin air. “I bet it’ll taste the way ambrosia does if you drank too much of it. It’s literally a smile from heaven!”

 _That makes no sense,_ Lan Zhan thought, wondering vaguely why he was still here. And, he was sure that... “We are underaged,” he said. “That is not allowed here.”

“What are you going to do, arrest me?” Wei Ying pouted. “I’m going to warn you now, I’m the kind of person who, if you bite me, I bite back.” He cradled the tiny bottle to his chest, watching Lan Zhan suspiciously. And still smiling, of course. “Ah-hee,” he said through his nose, “just try and stop me, see what happens.” When Lan Zhan did not respond, Wei Ying nodded affirmative to himself and popped the top off, sniffing the mouth of the bottle like it was a flask of perfume instead. “Wow...”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, and then inwardly cursed himself. Something about saying his name made this night too real, like he was conscious of it happening right now. “That isn’t allowed.”

“What’re you gonna do? Brush my hair too hard?” Wei Ying looked him right in the eye, and took his first sip.

Well, yes, his hair was flying in all directions right now, wildly, but just because Lan Zhan was a son of Aphrodite, it did not mean that he was tempted to fix everything on Wei Ying’s body—

His hand flashed out, seeking to snatch the wine; Wei Ying parried with a hand, leaping back. But Lan Zhan was adamant—he struck out again, harder, and Wei Ying jerked back in a way that made his hair splay into the breeze.

“I warned you!” Wei Ying said, blocking another strike, and shoving his elbow into Lan Zhan’s chin.

Lan Zhan jerked his face sideways just in the nick of time, catching Wei Ying’s now free-flying elbow. “Enough,” he snapped.

“Enough?” Wei Ying echoed, kicking out with a knee. “We’re just getting started! Don’t instigate a fight you can’t finish!”

Lan Zhan spun backwards, hating how he showed his opponent his back but needing to create space. That opponent dogged him; the grass rustled around what Lan Zhan realized were Wei Ying’s bare feet as he sprang at him—

Lan Zhan sidestepped, shot out a hand to intercept the wine bottle still cradled against Wei Ying’s chest.

 _Wei Ying is_ smart.

That’s the only thought rolling through Lan Zhan’s mind as he realized Wei Ying was now pulled flush against him, the hand holding the bottle the only thing in the way. Wei Ying had expected him to continue his endeavor for his forbidden drink, knew he would not move far, and changed the flow of his jump to press himself against Lan Zhan. Even Lan Zhan, the next Percy Jackson, could not do close-combat fighting when it was _this_ close.

Or could he?

He wrapped his arms around Wei Ying.

“Aiya, aiya!” Wei Ying cried out. “We’re in full view of the camp, Lan-er, what will people think?” Even as he spoke, he squirmed to loosen his hand from between their chests, raising the bottle to his lips and nearly elbowing Lan Zhan in the face as he drank—still looking him dead in the eye.

“Shameless!” Lan Zhan gritted. And he swung Wei Ying bodily over his head.

“Ah, Lan Zhan!” Lan Zhan was sure that if he could see Wei Ying’s face right about now, his eyes would be popping out of his head. “My wine!” Sure enough, the tragically satisfying sound of something sloshing into the grass rang through Lan Zhan’s ears, like a finely-stringed song.

Above him, Wei Ying seethed. “You—”

More squirming; Lan Zhan may be able to do handstands while he copied his work, but the ground never decided to fight back. They tumbled into the grass together, clawing like unrefined schoolboys for dominance.

And as it was, Lan Zhan finally pinned the rule-breaking gremlin down.

“You owe me another wine!” Wei Ying accused, whatever remnants in the bottle still clutched tightly to his chest, Lan Zhan’s hand scrabbling around his fist for purchase. “Unless...” A grin crept up his face, like he took it very well into stride, that he had been immobilized and stripped of the drink he had put so much effort into obtaining. “Lan Zhan, do you think Aphrodite would be proud of you right now? You’re supposed to be gentle and loving, not violent and horrible.”

“You seem to be just fine being brothers with Nico Di Angelo.” There it was again, conversation. It _was_ too far past his bedtime.

“Nico’s a sweetie,” Wei Ying laughed. “He’s grumpy, but he’s no Jiang Cheng. All he ever does is argue cutely with his boyfriend. It’s adorable. You should learn from my brother Nico.”

Lips thinning. Eyes narrowing. Mouth opening. Voice emerging. _She’s about passion._ “My mother is not just about romantic love. And you are not just about death.”

Wei Ying’s eyes widened, and the rest of him scrunched as he considered this answer. “Mm, you’re right,” he said. “My dad’s not just about the dead. He’s about taking care of the dead, and doling justice out to people when no one else can. Because when you’re dead, then no one can judge you but him, right? No one can touch you anymore. Ah, Lan Zhan, you should come to the Underworld with me when I go for the first time.”

“That will not be necessary.”

“Why not?” Wei Ying said, eyes brightening with his own chatter. “Think of how different it’ll be. We might even meet those heroes they keep talking about, like Charles Beckendorf. Isn’t it weird, that someone’s gone, but then they’re not actually gone? Who would you like to meet down there?”

“No one.” If his parents were gone, then they were gone. Lan Zhan could wait until his natural death to see them again.

“Why not? Do you have anyone who you would like to meet? No idols? Lan Zhan, don’t be so boring. We all have people we want to see, who we’re not able to see. I’ve been sleeping in the Hades cabin for a few hours, and I already want to see my siblings.”

“You will see them again tomorrow.” Why was he so worried? They were right there. It was not as if they were going on a quest anytime soon.

“Jiang Cheng and my Jie are definitely not Hermes’s kids, though,” Wei Ying fretted. “I don’t know where they’re going to end up. What if they end up on the other side of camp from me? Well, that’s just some more exercise in the morning when I go prank Jiang Cheng, I suppose.”

“Wei Ying.” Saying the name just drove a nail into his skull. But it worked. Wei Ying stopped talking.

And promptly flipped them over, so Lan Zhan was the one drowning in grass now.

“Lan-er,” Wei Ying said on top of him, “you can really be a conversationalist when you try, you know?”

“You take that back,” he said blandly, though there was an intense trickle of _something_ sliding up his ears.

Wei Ying’s laugh was like a bell, clear and loud. “I remember when I was younger, and Jiang Cheng and Jie’s parents took me in. But I remember a little before that too. Fighting dogs on the streets, and before even that, my mom telling me, ah, something about being sociable? Whatever it was, Lan-er, you’re better at it than people think you are.”

“You fought dogs,” Lan Zhan said. There was too much in that babble of words to really catch in a single cup, but he momentarily forgot he was underneath Wei Ying—well, there it was, remembered again—and asked, “Why did you fight dogs?”

Wei Ying seemed to cringe at the mere mention of dogs by anyone other than himself, but that was immediately swallowed by the realization that _Lan Zhan was talking to him._ He made himself more comfortable on top of him. “I was on the street for a while,” he said. It should have sounded like a confession, but it wasn’t. An experience is often truly lived, Lan Zhan thought at that moment, if the person who survived can speak so matter-of-factly about it in the aftermath. That was true of someone like Wei Ying. “My mother died, but I remember how...vibrant she was. I don’t remember much, just a lot of dogs chasing me off any properties I wandered onto.” He paused for breath.

“Mm,” said Lan Zhan.

“That’s why it would be nice to go to the Underworld,” Wei Ying said quietly. “I would like to see her one more time. And that’s why, Lan-er”—a playful nudge—“I don’t believe you when you say there’s no one you would want to visit. Think about all the possibilities. Be a little creative, Lan-er. Maybe you could learn from Robin Hood or...or Hou Yi or someone, who can teach you to outshoot me in archery.”

“Hou Yi isn’t real,” Lan Zhan said. “Neither is Robin Hood.” 

And on it went, until they had realized that the sea of grass around them had lightened, and Wei Ying was yawning and Lan Zhan finally felt awake.

—

He saw this as a test of self-control.

They were both woozy this morning—surprise, surprise.

“A-Zhan,” Lan Huan said to him, “if you need the day off, you can just go back to your cabin. Insomnia is an understandable reason to be tired.”

But Lan Zhan gave a stubborn shake of his head. “No need.”

And he glided gracefully into the Hades cabin, which was dark and solid.

“Who’s there?” someone demanded. That someone was Nico, whose gaunt eyes emerged from the shadows, like he had been waiting.

 _Creepy,_ he could imagine Wei Ying saying. Probably yesterday, when he had first moved in with his new brother, only to be greeted by this.

“Wen Ning requests Will Solace at the shooting range,” he said formally.

“Oh,” Nico said. “It’s you.” He narrowed his eyes, making it look apathetic. “You should go to Apollo’s cabin. Will’s there right now. And he was with Wen Qing, the last I saw. You guys are kind of all over the place right now, huh.”

Lan Zhan (still woozy) bit back a retort. He was not tired enough to be snarky.

“Thank you,” he said, all politeness personified, and even dipped his head a little before he retreated into the light. Apollo’s cabin was much like Hermes’s, though conspicuously lacking in chaos. It was bright and cheery, and he heard at least five instruments that should never be played together played together. And it drifted softly like a harmony that should never end.

Surprise, surprise. Wei Ying was also there, perched on the steps right next to the golden boy himself. Will Solace was listening to him detail something apparently outrageously exciting, as he watched him with rapt attention. He was a far more appropriate match to Wei Ying than Nico’s shadow in the Hades cabin.

Wei Ying batted one bare foot at one of the yellow blossoms twined around the cabin. 

“Try this, then,” Will Solace was saying by the time Lan Zhan was near, and he handed Wei Ying a recorder.

 _Oh no,_ said everyone’s faces as the little Apollo newcomers closed in to hear whatever disastrous excitement Hades’s Wei Ying could create out of a recorder.

He pursed his lips lightly, making the little doot-doot sounds into it. But it would be too much to expect a warm-up—he immediately jumped into a rendition of Hot Cross Buns that _screeched._

Recorders are meant to screech, but...not like this.

Will was too polite to cover his ears; he was camp counselor, and too much of a big brother figure to anyone who crossed his path. He was dating Nico Di Angelo, after all. But his face strained as he listened, and Apollo’s little ones sucked in a breath.

_Hot! Cross! Buns! Hot! Cross! Buns!_

Then it mellowed, as though the recorder understood Wei Ying. In a few moments, he was piping away, the music a melody to the five-instrument harmony still seeping from within the cabin.

_One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot. Cross. Buns._

There was a brief silence as the last note died away.

“Yay, A-Xian!” And the onlookers broke into applause as Jiang Yanli—who, Lan Zhan only noticed now—took the lead in clapping for her little brother.

Wei Ying swept into a grandiose bow from his sitting position—“sitting,” as his limbs were angled into different ways all over the steps—and winked in Lan Zhan’s direction. It was more of a blink, but Lan Zhan comprehended.

“Lan Zhan!” he called, waving. Lan Zhan refused to come hither, when that was so clearly what Wei Ying wanted, but that caught Will Solace’s attention.

“Ah, Zhan,” he said.

Lan Zhan inclined his head ever so slightly. “Wen Ning has asked for you at the shooting range.”

As they made their way to the archery range together, Wei Ying and his sister joined. Lan Zhan wanted to ask him why he seemed to be vibrating with excitement at someone else’s match, but he would not let his all-nighter win out.

But he and his sister were murmuring the answers to each other.

“A-Xian, Wen Ning has been improving a lot. Have you been helping him more than before?”

“He doesn’t really need much of it, truth be told,” he told Yanli. “But he’s finally worked up the nerve to ask Will Solace to train with him. Wen Qing might actually smile at me one of these days.”

Wen Ning was waiting at the range. Lan Zhan had seen him shoot—his hands were steady, for someone whose voice seemed ready to shake apart at any moment. His bow hung from his hands, pointed at the ground while his sister Wen Qing collected his shots from the bull’s-eye.

Their heads turned as Will Solace finally entered the scene, but they greeted everyone in turn. “Will. Yanli. Wei Ying. Zhan.”

Lan Zhan inclined his head politely. He saw these siblings—the famous Wen siblings of Apollo—every day. And yet they had never spoken.

“They say that every great medic has to carry a sword.” Yanli spoke first, gesturing at the long, slender blade of Celestial bronze in Wen Qing’s hand.

“Where on earth did you hear that?” Wen Qing said, the hint of a smile in her cheeks.

“I thought it was common knowledge here,” Yanli said sweetly.

“Eh, Wen Qing,” said Wei Ying. “Do you have a smile for me too?”

Wen Qing walked away.

He pouted. “Wowwwwwwwww...”

“A-Xian. Behave,” his sister scolded, in the least scolding way a human could muster.

“But, Jieeeeeee.”

Wen Ning gave Will Solace a small wave. “Thank you for coming,” he said. Everything about him was sheepish, even his words. “I didn’t think you would, but I’m glad you did.”

Will Solace, sunshine boy who was not Wei Ying, beamed at him in that elder-brother way, not unlike how Lan Huan faced Lan Zhan when he was truly encouraging him. “Yeah, of course. Did you want to verse me in a shooting competition?”

That light seemed to bounce off Wen Ning’s face. “Yes, of course!”

“My money’s on Wen Ning,” Wei Ying propped an elbow onto Lan Zhan’s shoulder, and for the first time, Lan Zhan felt the sway in his step. He was tired, after all.

Lan Zhan directed his stare at him, those big doe eyes still uncushioned by dark bags that would usually give away the night they had spent grappling and talking instead of sleeping; Wei Ying had not released the recorder, still twirling it in his hand.

“Careful there, Wei Ying,” said Will Solace, with a twinkle in his eye.

Wei Ying twinkled back. Lan Zhan felt that he may go blind. “I’m not scared of you. Wen Ning learned a few tricks from me.”

“What’re you gonna do,” Will said. “Play an evil melody? F-sharp me to death?”

“Something like that,” Wei Ying said. “Thanks for the tip.”

Wen Ning and Will Solace lined up, side by side, their bows at the ready; arrows nocked, one eye in each profile nailing into that one spot in the distance.

For once in his life, Wei Ying seemed not to voice what he was about to do, but Lan Zhan saw it in the cock of his lip. It was the same look he had worn last night, when Hades had claimed him.

He raised the recorder to his lips. Threateningly, of course.

The two sons of Apollo released their arrows, all angles curving back into flat, straight lines. And Wei Ying began to play.

 _Aura Lee._ It was a soft love song, then adapted by Elvis to be even more unsubtle about the romantic feelings in it. _Love Me Tender,_ it was called.

There seemed to be a cloud stuck in the dirt beneath them.

But that wasn’t right. It was black smoke, unfurling from the ground. Lan Zhan watched, fascinated, Wei Ying still on his shoulder, as he piped a love song, as the arrows bounced in slow motion off their strings.

As the smoke became a wall, and the arrows punctured through them. No, that wasn’t right.

Where Wen Ning’s arrow had been suspended, there was a hole to the other side. It was Will Solace’s arrow that froze. It would not move.

Wen Ning’s arrow thunked into the center of the bull’s-eye.

Will Solace immediately whipped around. “I’ll get you for that, Wei Ying!” he said, grinning appreciatively. Lan Zhan wondered why he was not the least bit intimidated, because he heard Wen Qing and Yanli take a deep, collective breath. “I’ll tell your brother!”

Ah. Because he was Nico’s boyfriend. And, Lan Zhan reflected quickly, of course, this was Will Solace. He had seen more than his share of battles—of outright war.

And yet, he could still smile.

“Wei Ying.”

They both started.

Will and Wen Ning had turned back to their match, and Wen Qing had engaged Yanli in talk about whatever technique they had in mind for curing what they agreed was Wei Ying’s brash genius. And Lan Zhan did not recall opening his mouth in the past few minutes.

He and Wei Ying turned their heads in unison to an approaching figure. The man had gray hair, and unreadable eyes. No...no eyes were unreadable. Lan Zhan knew that. And yet, when he looked into them, they seemed to reflect the world around them rather than hold their own depth. He stood there, seemingly out of nowhere, in a starched gray suit.

Who was this man? Lan Zhan’s hand twitched, but he had no blade on him right now.

“Who’re you?” Wei Ying blinked.

“That was a marvelous trick you performed just now,” said the man, as though Wei Ying had not spoken. “Your father is very proud.”

“I asked you a question,” Wei Ying said. He was still splayed, somehow comfortably, on Lan Zhan’s shoulder, but Lan Zhan felt him tense.

“Oh, but you will know very soon,” said the man, “son of Hades. And you as well, son of Aphrodite.”

Lan Zhan leveled his best cold stare at the man, which is to say he made a conscious effort to add tension to his eyes.

“Come to the Underworld,” the man said. “Don’t you want to be rewarded for your sleight of hand?”

Lan Zhan blinked.

And he was gone.

Wei Ying frowned, staring at the spot where he had been standing before the two of them had made the mistake of blinking their sleep-deprived eyes. “What the Hades...”

Lan Zhan turned bodily to look at the rest of their group, but they had evidently not caught any of their interaction just now. As he did, Wei Ying slid off his shoulder, surprised by the movement.

“Wei Ying. Lan Zhan.”

Another person? But it was just Chiron, trotting to meet them. Wei Ying, mouth just opened to complain before he had called out, stuttered on his own comment as he redirected it into a greeting. “Oh, hi there, Chiron! Fancy that, seeing you here.” He waved his recorder wildly.

Lan Zhan cringed away before it could whack him to death. “Chiron,” he said in greeting. “What brings you here?”

He looked troubled. Usually, he would look troubled, anyway—he ran a camp that had a pile of teenagers and pre-pubescent tweens and Wei Ying in it, of course—but more so than usual. Like he carried bad news.

“I’ll need to speak to you two,” Chiron said, “and I’ll need you to come to the Big House.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: So the “A-” prefix that everyone uses in MDZS is a super regional thing, that is not a thing in my region of China. And I don’t know anyone who actually uses that in modern day, so I’m not even sure if it’s still a thing. But since we’re shedding courtesy names for this fic, which died out a long time ago, Lan Xichen calls his little brother “A-Zhan.” “Xiao Zhan” would be too cute and 肉麻. Fight me.
> 
> A-Xian—so, most Chinese people grow up with a cute, embarrassing nickname that we swear to never tell anyone once we’re older. Therefore, in this world, Wei Wuxian still gets to be called Xianxian by his family. Fight me.
> 
> Also, I’ve taken the liberty of letting Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen be modern people and occasionally use contractions. Fight me.
> 
> I didn’t realize how many exclamation points I’ve been using to write Wei Wuxian’s dialogue. Huh.
> 
> Also—sticking close to your opponent is an actual thing in fighting! But once you do, get ready to grapple.
> 
> Writing this was painful, as I haven’t read most of the Percy Jackson books in years.]


	3. The Powerhouse of the Coffee Beans, but Also the Prophecy

Lan Zhan had been to the Big House often since he first came to Camp Half-Blood.

Their uncle had sent them here. He later learned that other demigods—all of them—usually found their way here in violent, tragic ways. He had heard the stories of Percy Jackson’s arrival, of Annabeth Chase’s, and of course of Thalia Grace’s. He cast one last glance behind him, at the Athena Parthenon watching over them all, and wished for his first quest.

He and Lan Huan were lucky, to have not grown up with the trauma the demigods around him had grown up with, and that was because his uncle had sheltered them, protected them against the rain under his roof of rules. It was the rules that had kept him safe from monsters. Never go outside alone. And learn to fight, but only in the safety of their own backyard. He and his brother were inseparable, because one always had to be there to protect the other.

He wondered what canine monsters Wei Ying had faced on the streets.

Chiron unslung his own quiver and bow from his back, clip-clopping to the empty wheelchair sitting under the eaves. This must be Wei Ying’s first time seeing him make the transition; his eyes expanded into the size of twin plates as Chiron opened it up, folding his horse legs, then waist, neatly into it. After this performative origami, he looked like nothing but an old, mortal man in a wheelchair.

“Whoa,” Wei Ying said.

The centaur in the wheelchair nodded. “I disguise myself as social studies teachers very well.”

“Should’ve taught me,” he said. “I might’ve actually paid attention. What’s a mitochondria?”

“The powerhouse of the cell,” Lan Zhan said, flicking a piece of dust off the cuff of his sleeve.

Chiron nodded as he wheeled ahead into the Big House. Lan Zhan wanted to ask him what was pressing that wrinkle between his brows so deeply, wanted to seek guidance immediately. Shufu had entrusted him to this ma—centaur. If he was stressed, Lan Zhan had plenty reason to be as well.

He and Wei Ying were brought into the living room, and it was like a particularly lush summer had exploded in their faces. It was a mess of green leaves and grapevines thriving where they shouldn’t have rooted in the first place; they poked through masks from several cultures, that were mounted on the walls, and yet even those wooden masks were barely visible through the greenery. It was comfortable, felt like safety, but for the leopard head mounted over the fireplace mantle. If Lan Zhan ignored the leopard, whose name he knew to be Seymour, he could feel that he was home again, with Shufu and Ge. Let the mists and baby pines in their home wash their scent clean away.

The boombox was still there, playing some other painful Italian melody opera. Wei Ying started bobbing his head to it at once, while giggling at Seymour.

So Wei Ying liked discordance and out-of-place violin sounds. Noted. Then Lan Zhan remembered that what Wei Ying liked was unimportant.

In any case, when they sat down, Wei Ying took the liberty of sagging lightly against Lan Zhan’s shoulder; Lan Zhan, trained by his uncle in self-control and meditation, set himself ramrod-straight on his chair.

Chiron even offered them free use of a new addition—a small table laden with a barista’s dream (or nightmare, depending on how one looked at it): matcha powder, whisks, a coffeemaker, bags of chai, a milk frother. A small jar of tapioca balls. An absolutely sinful amount of coffee bean selections, until Lan Zhan realized they were fair trade-certified. And, French vanilla.

“Do you have any chili flakes or chili powder?” Wei Ying asked, glancing at Seymour over and over again as though he wished he were tall enough to poke the sharp-toothed animal on its whiskers. He plucked a grape from a hanging vine and popped it into his mouth.

“Unfortunately not,” Chiron said, one eyebrow jumping momentarily.

Wei Ying pouted.

_Chili powder?_

“How is the Aphrodite cabin leader doing in Piper McLean’s absence?” Chiron asked.

“Well,” Lan Zhan said truthfully. Chiron was not one to beat around the bush, so for whatever reason he was opening on small talk, his questions must bear some sort of importance.

“And how are you settling in with young Nico?” he asked Wei Ying.

Wei Ying smiled in a way that was half-sleepy, half bursting at the seams. “He’s a really sweet kid. A bit of an edgelord, but that’s okay. I want him to teach me to control the earth one of these days.”

Chiron nodded. “Then you’re both settling in well. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you to leave on your first quest.”

Wei Ying, in the midst of sipping a matcha latte, choked. “Really?” he gagged through the froth.

His first quest! Lan Zhan felt his hand curl, unbidden, in his lap.

“Rachel Elizabeth Dare came in today,” he said. “You should go to her cave after this to hear the prophecy. But before that, I wanted to see if the two of you are ready for this quest.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Wei Ying said. “I even got into a fight in Lan Zhan last night, for the whole night, and now we’re sleep-deprived. That’s just what a quest is, right?”

“You did...” Chiron seemed to think better of asking further. “Quests are a dangerous thing. You just got here, Wei Ying.” As he said this, his eyes flicked at Lan Zhan, so quickly he felt that he must have imagined it.

In order to keep his ears from blushing and giving him away, he redirected every ounce of blood flow and stress towards his hands. They tightened into fists until they shook. Chiron thought he was incompetent? No...but did he think he was unprepared? Yes.

“We can take anything,” he said, unwittingly dropping into a solidarity that Wei Ying immediately leaned into.

Physically, leaning more heavily on Lan Zhan, Wei Ying said, “Yeah, that’s right! Everyone’s gotta start somewhere. So what’s the quest?”

As Chiron opened his mouth, the door burst open.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare—ginger-haired, frizzy, wild-eyed—marched into the room, the shifting green sunlight of the office casting her hair and face into patchwork. “You took too long, Chiron,” she said.

Lan Zhan felt that he would come to like this Oracle. She spoke bluntly, not sharply.

“Maybe you just didn’t want to wait any longer,” Chiron said.

She gave him a thin smile. “Ha.”

“So?” Chiron prompted. “I’m sure you’ve seen young Wei Ying and Lan Zhan around camp.”

“I’ve seen Huan and heard Cheng,” Rachel Elizabeth Dare said, looking at them both appraisingly. “You look nothing like Cheng.”

“I’m adopted,” Wei Ying chirped.

“Oh, that’s cool,” said Rachel Elizabeth Dare. She then took a seat across them, sitting cross-legged. “Ready?”

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying had only enough time to nod before her eyes glazed over with light from within, as though a gem had been buried in each hole, and her mouth gaped, releasing a stream of glowing green smoke.

Her position was relaxed, limbs limp at her knees. Clearly, the Oracle had found her comfort zone when she gave her prophecies.

“ _The dog will wait at the door,”_ she began, and at Lan Zhan’s side, Wei Ying flinched. “ _The son of darkness must settle a score. Although they go—sons of beauty, of lightning, of death—their numbers will add by one. Before the end of spring, through journey long, Persephone they’ll bring.”_

The stream stopped. 

Someone was going to come back with them. Wei Ying cast Lan Zhan an excited glance. “Is it a new demigod?” he asked. “Or are we going to find a new god?”

“You have a good imagination,” Chiron said. For a moment—a mere moment—there was a swipe of mischievous pigment in his eyes, that matched Wei Ying’s dead on. Although Lan Zhan knew he was old—ancient—he was suddenly struck with the idea that Chiron and the teenage Wei Ying were one and of the same year.

“The dog at the door is clearly Cerberus,” said Lan Zhan. “We’re going to Hades.”

Beside him, Wei Ying flinched again. Before either of them must have realized, his hands were clutching at Lan Zhan’s sleeve.

The fact that he did not bolt out of the room immediately was amazing, and Lan Zhan wondered vaguely if his mother was proud of him for it. He passionately sat his ground. “Don’t touch me,” he finally said, with a small glance of warning at Wei Ying. But he did not detach himself until Wei Ying, pouting, did it himself. That did nothing to soothe the hot rush of _something_ squeezing the sides of him, from head to ears to arms.

Seeing as how that didn’t work, he wondered if Wei Ying could please set his hands back on him anyway, but he did not touch him again.

Instead, Wei Ying fluttered a hand over his heart, taking deep breaths to calm himself. And not just that; Lan Zhan finally deciphered the words he was muttering under his breath: “Why the Hades...of all things...Dad has a giant dog...”

Lan Zhan felt, in a rare and magical instance, the need to say the _fuck_ word as well. This was a situation where his brother would tell him, _It’s a good idea to be kind—_ his way of saying, _Don’t be unkind._ But at the same time, his own uncle had raised him without ever holding or hugging him, and the only person who was allowed to hug him was Lan Huan, and even then, Lan Huan stopped holding him when he was too old for that, and anyway, why hug his brother? That wasn’t right...

Chiron, brave, nurturing centaur that he was—he trotted forward, and placed a hand on Wei Ying’s shoulder. When Wei Ying tilted his head up to look at him, his eyes were big.

“Your father’s dog is no less tame than a housepet,” he said, gently. “If I can offer a trick—Cerberus likes to play. And, you will not be going in alone.”

Wei Ying took one last, chest-deep breath. “Who’s afraid?” he grinned, lip twitching in a way that gave away a wave of sarcasm. “Not, I, surely. Guess you’ll have to band me together with some reliable people, then!”

Chiron nodded. “The next line is likely about you, son of Hades. But the one after that already tells us that it is you and Lan Zhan.” He was looking at him now.

Lan Zhan acknowledged him with a tilt of his head.

Chiron understood. “The children of lightning is another matter altogether. The only child of Zeus still living is Thalia Grace. Unless...”

“He has children that we don’t know about!” Wei Ying exclaimed. “But then...” His Eureka moment ebbed. “The oath on the River Styx was only released a few years ago. Unless he broke it, and managed to really hide kids away, then we’ll be taking a couple of infants on a deadly quest. Mm...” A light humming sound as he thought. “Well, I do put the ‘Ying’ in Wei Ying!” He twisted towards Lan Zhan. “How about this? I babysit the kiddies, and you deal with my dad’s dog? Deal?”

“Your name means ‘kid’?” Rachel asked. “Like a goat?” Could she predict awkward silences too? Because Lan Zhan truly did not know what he was about to respond to Wei Ying, but he did not like the idea of rejecting him again.

“It’s Chinese for ‘infant,’” Wei Ying said, “because I’m so innocent.” He sniggered.

Rachel caught onto whatever secret language he was laughing at her, as she sniggered back.

Chiron coughed. Clearly, he understood their sneaky giggles, leaving Lan Zhan the only confused and incensed one in the room. But he was also a teacher, so he shrugged it off and said, “Now, now, children. There is a quest to plan for. The last line refers to Persephone. Spring clearly comes, and yet...” He frowned.

“Could it be,” Wei Ying said, “that the peril to her hasn’t happened yet?”

“Spring won’t be coming this year,” Rachel said suddenly. The revelation struck her as suddenly as she said it, it seemed. “It all makes sense now.” She snapped her fingers. “Something’s going to happen to Persephone.”

Lan Zhan did not understand.

“It hasn’t happened yet, but there’s a little bit written on Tyson’s body about a year where spring doesn’t come. I thought it was about, you know, climate change, but I think the Oracle of Delphi has been telling me something these past few days,” she explained, obviously in response to the blank faces—in Wei Ying’s case, blanker—turned towards her. “This”—she waved a hand outside, where the sun was drenching the world back into green—isn’t going to last. And we’re not supposed to stop it until it actually happens.”

“Have you any idea why that would be?” Chiron asked.

Rachel shook her frizzy, frustrated head. “No clue. I’ll need more time. But I’m sure of it. I—” She froze.

“Rachel?” Wei Ying sprang forward. He reached out to her—

She coughed, and her cough came out green. When she blinked, her eyes were back to glowing. “ _When the frost comes at noon,”_ she said, “ _then will the sons of darkness and beauty begin their tune.”_

She dropped deep into the chair, and Wei Ying grabbed her wrist, checking her pulse. Lan Zhan absolutely did not want him to touch him that way at all. Of course not. Ridiculous. Perish the thought.

He decided to focus on Chiron, since the centaur had begun speaking.

“She will be fine, Wei Ying,” he said. As though on cue, Rachel stirred, smiling at Wei Ying and thanking him for like, totally being concerned, but it was normal and she was fine now. “It sounds as though we must wait before we spring into action. Since we have a lapse of time before the quest—unusual in and of itself—we should spend this next week preparing. The Apollo children must be the children of light. They, Wei Ying, and Lan Zhan should train together. Meanwhile, we wait. The children of Zeus, if that is what they are, will turn up by fate.”

Fate. Lan Zhan wondered if it was fate that he was the son of a goddess like Aphrodite. He wondered if it was fate that he was the most un-Aphrodite demigod to exist.

“And you should start with lunch.” Lan Zhan was snapped out of his thoughts by Rachel’s remark, as she checked her wristwatch. “I am starving,” she announced to the room. “If you need anything, Chiron, I’ll be in my cave, munching on a cheese sandwich. Prophecy-telling is hungry work.”

“Not a grilled cheese sandwich?” Wei Ying asked, obviously with his priorities in order.

“No. A cheese sandwich.”

“You’re so basic,” Wei Ying snorted.

“Your name is Baby, so who’s the basic one here?”

His humor restored, Wei Ying sputtered indignantly.

Chiron sighed. “In any case, I am sure you all have your things to do,” he said. “If I may...Rachel, perhaps you should bring in the Wen siblings here after your lunch. They will want to hear this prophecy. I have a feeling they are the children of Apollo it refers to.”

“You have that feeling because I said so the other day,” Rachel said. “But point taken. Now we know for sure.”

Chiron nodded.

They were dismissed. But Wei Ying raised a hand as he sprang up from his seat and Lan Zhan lifted himself gracefully from his. “One more thing,” he said. “Chiron, these coffee beans are really, really great, and good on you for getting fair trade stuff. But fair trade is a flawed system too. Growers have to pay way too much money for certification, so they end up losing money anyway, and the conditions still aren’t that great. You should get direct trade beans instead.”

 _Wei Ying!_ Lan Zhan could not help taking in a breath. Nobody spoke.

Finally, Chiron’s eyes crinkled. “Curious,” he said. “I did not know that. Thank you for telling me, Wei Ying. I will be doing so very soon.”

But Lan Zhan decided to linger after everyone had filed out. “Chiron,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, Wei Ying was shamelessly goggling him, but Rachel yanked him away by the arm.

“Yes?” said Chiron as the door closed.

“My mother...,” he began.

Chiron nodded in understanding. “Aphrodite?” he prompted.

“My brother and I are her sons,” he said.

“There is no shame in being the son of Aphrodite,” Chiron said. “Your uncle still raised you well. I could see that from the moment you arrived at Camp Half-Blood. Your father loved her for more than her looks, I can tell you that. It is true that the goddess of love and beauty has never chosen anyone—man, woman, non-binary, or otherwise—who was not...physically fitted to her tastes. But do not forget that love is a great strength in and of itself. Why, even Percy Jackson could tell you how that brought the Athena Parthenon back to us after millennia of being lost.”

Lan Zhan could not see the Parthenon from this angle, but there was a slight tingle of relief that he was sure turned his ear tips pink. “I thought I would be the son of Athena,” he said. Smart? A strategist? And wisdom? His actual mother seemed so far from it.

“You are still all those things without the traits we assign to parentage,” Chiron said kindly. “Your uncle told you your parents’ love story?”

Lan Zhan nodded.

“We all make sacrifices for love,” Chiron said, “regardless of who our parents are.”

Lan Zhan was struck by the sudden reminder of who Chiron _was._ The son of Kronos, whom he stood before with an arrow during the Second Titan War. He could picture it now from the stories he heard—Chiron, who was so much bigger than life to him, just a puny little son aiming straight for the Titan Lord.

“If I may,” Chiron added, thoughtfully, now. “It is not always about the end result. It is about what happens in between. Heroes like you learn that early on.”

Lan Zhan had one last question. “But the children of the Big Three?”

Chiron’s eyes turned dark. Lan Zhan could only imagine the order in which those names drifted—Thalia Grace. Jason Grace. Bianca Di Angelo. As if a demigod’s life were not already tragic enough, it was a shock that a child of the Big Three could even exist with an ounce of laughter in the world.

“I have always done what I could to ensure their safety and happiness, but that,” Chiron said, with a touch of sadness, “is hard to say.”

—

Lan Zhan told his brother before they went down to dinner.

“Our first quest.” Lan Huan’s eyes sparkled. “And we even have time to prepare. But why did Chiron not call me in too?”

“It seemed...hazy,” Lan Zhan admitted. “Like the Oracle was only just piecing the prophecy together herself.”

“There must be a reason for that,” Lan Huan guessed. “I have never heard of anyone having time to prepare for a quest before. Do you think whatever force is at play behind Persephone’s...upcoming disappearance...is purposely blocking parts of it out? Toying with us?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Zhan said. But what his brother said made sense.

“There’s so much in the world we don’t know,” Lan Huan mused. “But it didn’t make a difference before we started to know.”

Lan Zhan knew he could read his silence, so he merely waited before Lan Huan continued, “Even our mother. A-Zhan, we have lived up to huge expectations before, but the rest of the world does not live up to what we did.”

“I know that,” Lan Zhan said. Some part of him was starting to sting. He _had_ expected to be any other deity’s child. He needn’t be so shallow about what his mother was like. He had not even met the woman. And he had barely met his father, anyway. They were nothing but Greek mythology to him.

Lan Huan patted him, and that was how Lan Zhan knew he was inconsolable. And, also, the Aphrodite cabin was so _pink._

“We will see what happens,” Lan Huan promised. “We have only started to understand who we are.”

That night, Wei Ying argued with Nie Huaisang about _Coco,_ because of course he did. Something, something, why did Miguel’s alebrije have to be a _dog? Why was it always about dogs?_

Then, he promptly knocked out, right there at the table.

Lan Zhan could not help it. His lip twitched.

—

And this night was not finished with him yet.

A man appeared before him. Before Lan Zhan could fully make him out, he transformed; shifting, rolling like mist, before he rematerialized as a woman. She was dressed modestly in a black dress, and it showed off her waist perfectly.

His tongue was loose in sleep too. “Mother?” he said.

“Zhanzhan,” she said affectionately, and he winced at the sound of his name coming out of an unfamiliar mouth. Even his brother had never called him that. “You don’t like that? I always did think you grew up much too fast. So stuffy, like your father.”

Oh, his father was stuffy? Good. At least there was some hope for him before he fell for her.

She giggled, which was the only way to describe it, though the sound was dignified. The godly rays that surrounded her supported that dignity. “My Zhanzhan,” she said, “your first quest is starting so soon.”

Lan Zhan asked her his most burning question at the moment. “Why do you claim me now?”

Her eyes sparkled in equal measures of mirth and mystery. Lan Zhan was getting tired of people—and a goddess—sparkling around him. “Because who else is going to give up everything and gain everything from this quest?” she asked. “You’ll be learning so much in the coming months.”

“What does that mean?” he said. _Everything? Lose and gain?_ Not Lan Huan, surely? And the Wen siblings were not close to him, but they didn’t deserve to perish in a quest.

“No, not like that,” she said. “Not a person. Your uncle did right by you, protecting you from the world when your father could not. But your father was a good man, too. That’s why I loved him.”

“I know that,” Lan Zhan said indignantly.

“You’ll learn on this quest just why it is important to embrace the springtime of your life,” she said, sounding too much like Lan Huan now. “I know you know, but it’s different to live that knowing. You deserve to live, Zhanzhan.”

“I’m living right now,” he argued.

Aphrodite shook her head, black curls falling around her shoulders. “There’s more to life than rules and even your family,” she said.

Before he could open his mouth again, she leaned forward and pressed a finger against his lips, shushing him. Her skin was cool. He had expected her, in all his rigidity in which he regarded how the world works, to burn like fervor.

“I will make sure you are not alone on this quest,” she promised. “I care about my children too deeply to let them go in without a single thing at their side, especially someone as new to a hero’s life like you. You and Huanhuan will hear from me again, but right now, I will impart you with a gift and a piece of advice. Go to the Apollo cabin when you wake. Follow your passion, Zhanzhan.”

Her eyes were multicolored, shifting. Lan Zhan caught sight of the gold in them, to match his own. Although his insides squirmed with discomfort, he nodded. He trusted her at least this much.

She smiled again. “Good.” She leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead, and he realized that they stood at the same height.

When he awoke, he clasped in between his hands a long, white sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: "And anyway, why hug his brother? That wasn’t right…"
> 
> Siblings reax only.
> 
> This chapter took a long time because I had to reacquaint myself with the entire original series. Hazza. Hope you all enjoy. Fair trade coffee is problematic, as I learned just last week.]


	4. Pork Rib Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lan Zhan wakes up to two gifts, but there's a third, and it's called Jiang Yanli's friendship.

“Bichen,” Lan Zhan said to his brother. They sat on Lan Huan’s bed, looking at the new weapons their mother had gifted them.

“Bichen,” Lan Huan repeated. “That’s a good name.”

Lan Zhan nodded. It was poetic. Chen, which meant the red dust of the world passing by. It was a Buddhist concept.

“And your sword?” he asked.

Lan Huan turned his over and over in his hands, thinking. “Shuoyue,” he said at last. He pulled it from its sheath, clearly enjoying the hitch-and-slide sound it made. The celestial bronze did not clash with the whites and blues and silvers of the hilt; it was a pale, golden blade. “Most gods seem to gift their children with weapons to prepare them for a quest, or if they think they have made a significant feat.”

Another thing that was just handed to them. Lan Huan must have seen the scarce frown on Lan Zhan, because he smiled and shook his head.

“We should go to Apollo’s cabin,” he told Lan Zhan. “See what our mother has in store for us there.”

They left.

News of the new prophecy had spread. Clarisse LaRue gave them more than half a glance as they made their way to Apollo’s, though whether it was out of envy or slight disdain for the grace period they had been given, Lan Zhan could not tell. Some demigods glanced nervously at the sky, as if they expected it to stop shining so clearly and start falling.

When they reached the cabin, Wei Ying was of course sitting on the steps with a new crowd of Apollo’s kids, piping away at his Recorder of Doom.

...Which, Lan Zhan found out in the next second, was exactly what Wei Ying had named it.

“Ah, Lan Zhan!” He waved. “Come check out Recorder of Doom!” Beside him, Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. Lan Zhan wondered why he was still taking note of Jiang Cheng doing the thing he did every time he saw him. “Is that your sword?”

Lan Zhan did not need to turn to know Lan Huan was smiling. Well, this was embarrassing.

“Mn,” he said, once they were close enough for Wei Ying to hear.

“Bitchin’ sword,” Wei Ying said, winking at Bichen.

Lan Zhan suddenly did not want to tell him what he had decided to name his sword.

“That’s funny,” Lan Huan said.

“Ge,” Lan Zhan protested.

“He named it Bichen,” Lan Huan continued.

_ Gods damn it. _

“Oh, did he, now?” Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Wei Ying’s gremlin smile was back. “We must be on the same wavelength, Lan-er.” He piped a happy tune out of his Recorder of Doom.

Lan Zhan quickly switched to Chinese, explaining to him, “‘Bi’ to ‘force out,’ ‘chen,’ as in ‘hong chen.’ This just means to avoid worldly affairs.”

Wei Ying didn’t bother to switch, responding in English, “Yeah, we all took Buddhism 101 in Saturday school—”

“What is that?” one of the poor Apollo children whispered to another clueless Apollo child.

“—but Bichen is jus’ bitchin’!”

“You know you deserve to die just for that pun alone, right?” Jiang Cheng asked him.

“What’re you gonna do, kill me?” Wei Ying taunted.

They could not help it; they burst into snickers. Lan Zhan was so, so tired of these idiots.

“Maybe,” said their sister, a quiet, dignified kind of girl who seemed mature beyond her teenage years, “Lan-er would like to try out your Recorder of Doom?” Even the way she said the horrible, horrible name seemed angelic. Lan Zhan automatically wondered what kind of household she grew up in that required their daughter to be a third parent.

“It’s got your spit all over it,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Not if I have alcohol, which I clearly do,” Wei Ying said, snapping his fingers.

“You’re  _ underage—” _

But in the next moment, an Apollo kid scampered forward, handing Wei Ying an alcohol wipe.

“I’ll let you suck on it if you ask nicely,” Wei Ying said, daring him to eat his words. “Thanks, by the way,” he said to the kid, who nodded and retreated back to the porch with all the other Apollo kids who were watching the family drama.

Jiang Cheng muttered something to Jiang Yanli as Wei Ying wiped down the mouth of the recorder, twirling it with a flourish into an outstretched offering. Lan Zhan, very reluctantly, took it from him.

His uncle had forced him to learn to play piano and violin from as soon as he could reliably use his fingers, of course. He had done so diligently, and he knew the flow of music. Why, some days, he was so into it, that his uncle would open the windows to their home and let the very loud sounds flow out (noise is strictly prohibited in their home).

Flutes were a whole different animal. He pursed his lips lightly, and blew.

Wei Ying screeched along with the damn thing. “Oh my gods, Lan Zhan, seriously...” He keeled over, clutching at his stomach as he...was this kid laughing so hard he was crying?

“This is boring anyway,” Lan Zhan said, ears hot, thrusting the recorder back at Wei Ying.

“Nonono, Lan Zhan, don’t be mad!” Wei Ying said. “No, wait, noooooo.” He caught Lan Zhan’s wrist before he could retreat, entreating him, “No, wait. I think you have nice hands. I have the perfect thing for you.”

As he was dragged away, he glanced at Lan Huan and mouthed,  _ Nice hands? _

His brother shrugged unhelpfully, and watched Wei Ying kidnap his little brother into Apollo’s cabin. They had lived in Hermes’s cabin not long ago, and it showed.

“Will?” Wei Ying’s fingers were clutching Lan Zhan’s wrist as they wove through the still rather blinding insides of the cabin. “Will? Where you at?”

From behind a potted plant, Will Solace’s curly golden head emerged. “Wei Ying!” He waved. Over here. He looked proud of himself, which was an assuring sight for Lan Zhan after being dragged into a crowded cabin by Wei Ying.

They halted before him, peering over the plant in unison. “Well, that’s exactly what I asked for,” Wei Ying said. “How’d you manage to do it in such a short amount of time?”

Will Solace raised a finger to his lips. “The children of Apollo never reveal their secrets,” he said, dropping his voice conspiratorially.

Across his knees lay a long, shiny guqin.

It was made of dark, sleek wood—a heavy, wine-dark color like mahogany—and yet its figure was slim, running with vague streaks in the wood where the lumber was cut, so its patterns rippled like water. The tassels at the end were so silver, they were white. Although some guqin are cut into a serrated shape along its edges, this one was cut smooth, to better run one’s hand over.

Evidently, life was showering with Lan Zhan with gifts out of pity for his parentage. He wondered if his mother had a hand in this.

Still, it called to him. Will offered it up, and he took it. He let Wei Ying lead him by the arm back out to the steps, where he sat with it across his knees and plucked a string.

Warmth.

He strummed it, chasing the sounds, figuring out where to apply pressure with his left hand just so that a different note came out. The guqin turned almost a copper sheen in the reflection of Apollo’s cabin, and soon, he was flying through that color.

He was conscious of Wei Ying sitting by his knee, watching with such a googly-eyed look that Lan Zhan called it reverence.

He took to it well—because of his past experience with piano and violin, both hands coordinated with each other, working in sync. He even found himself humming, and it didn’t bother him at all that he was making too much noise. Maybe his shufu’s voice came to mind a couple of times, but then he remembered the days his shufu opened the windows; how the sound wreathed around the trees and seemed to chase any potential monsters away. He remembered his mother telling him to follow his passion.

So he kept going.

He did not really know at what point he started, but he eventually began strumming patterns, composing a song. He paused.

Wei Ying immediately began clapping, and Lan Zhan realized just how many Apollo kids were surrounding them right now, watching wide-eyed.

“I’ve never seen that before,” one of the Apollo kids—Kayla, her name probably was—whispered to Will Solace.

“It’s a Chinese instrument,” whispered Will back.

“It kind of looks like a harp, or one of Dad’s lyres if you stretched it out and put it on a table,” she whispered back.

“Hm, you got a point there,” Will whispered conspiratorially.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying tugged at Lan Zhan’s sleeve to punctuate each word, and, still feeling bad about yesterday, he acknowledged him with a slight nod of his head.

Lan Huan had settled himself neatly onto the grass beside Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng, and all three of them were looking at their siblings with...pride. Lan Zhan felt himself flush to his ears again. His brother  _ did  _ encourage him to be kind, so he was probably doing a good job of it just now.

Well, on Jiang Cheng, the hard ridges of his face seemed to have softened somewhat. Lan Zhan was very quickly learning how to read the interactions between Wei Ying and his brother. Jiang Yanli was a different story....

Wei Ying gave his siblings a quick wave that only she (and Lan Huan) returned, before excitedly babbling his new ideas off at Lan Zhan, “Do you like it, do you like it? Your brother told me you liked piano and violin, but I thought that was a bit too generic, so I got a little Asian with it. I don’t know where Will got this, but doesn’t it sound nice? We should duet sometime, you know. How about right now?”

Without waiting, he raised his Recorder of Doom back to his lips and whistled a happy tune. Totally reluctantly, Lan Zhan strummed a corresponding note. Slowly, the two of them stitched together a harmony that Lan Zhan was surprised to find he actually liked.

How long did they sit out there, playing in tune? Aphrodite was right—following his passion  _ was  _ a gift. When Jiang Yanli finally came up to nudge Wei Ying, telling him that it was lunchtime, he happily went.

But not before he extended the invitation. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” he said, prodding him. “You and your brother should come too! My sister makes the best lotus root pork rib soup, right, Jie?”

Jiang Yanli flushed with pride and embarrassment. “I’ll have to make more than yesterday’s leftovers, then,” she said. “So you’ll have to wait a little bit,” she told Lan Zhan and Lan Huan.

Lan Zhan started, “We won’t trouble you, the—”

“We could help in the kitchen,” Lan Huan said, smiling a smile that would make their mother beam. And, Lan Zhan realized now, was inherited from her.

“Bonding activity!” Wei Ying cheered, and promptly hauled Lan Zhan away.

_ Be kind,  _ Lan Huan had taught his little brother.  _ Be kind, be kind, be kind... _

Chiron let them use the kitchen in the Big House, so they had a fantastic view of the valley as they cooked. Out of politeness, Wei Ying slapped Jiang Cheng’s hand away from the leftovers and pouted, with the reprimand of, “It’s rude to eat before the guests do!”

What a way to be an older brother, which Lan Zhan just realized he was. For a whiny baby, he knew how to bring his own little brother to heel.

So Jiang Cheng, grumbling, joined Wei Ying and Lan Huan in sorting and boiling pork ribs under Jiang Yanli’s direction. It took three people to do the job, mostly because Lan Huan and Jiang Cheng had clearly never done a day of kitchen work in their lives; Lan Zhan knew his brother could make rice and congee, but most of the kitchen work had been left to Lan Zhan himself as they grew up. Their shufu mostly had Lan Huan go outside to do yardwork. It was probably because he didn’t want the younger ( _ weaker,  _ Lan Zhan thought rather sullenly) brother out exposed by himself. And even then, Lan Huan always stayed within eyeshot; Lan Zhan would watch him as he cooked, through the kitchen’s open backdoor.

Shufu really had been overprotective of Lan Zhan in general.

“Jiang-jie,” he said to Jiang Yanli now. “I always helped in the kitchen at home. So, do you need me to wash the lotus roots?”

She brightened, and the conveniently-placed halo of sunlight she was standing in front of didn’t help. “Come here,” she said, beckoning, and he joined her by the sink, left to their own devices.

There is something about older siblings that sticks to their bones, reveals them. Like Lan Huan, Jiang Yanli had an atmosphere about her, as though she only had to lift a finger and everything would be all right. Nie Mingjue, too, from what Lan Zhan had seen of him—although Nie Huaisang was  _ terrified  _ of him, they had entered the camp hand-in-hand. So even Nie Mingjue, loud and harsh and nothing like Lan Huan or Jiang Yanli, had a quiet fortitude about him. Just one, or two years more of being in the world gave them knowledge Lan Zhan had yet to learn.

They worked in a quiet rhythm, Lan Zhan washing the lotus roots and handing them to Jiang Yanli to chop. The sunlight glinted off her blade, and she chopped each root into thick chunks.

“I hope you like lotus roots thick,” she said. “My brothers like the crunch in them. We’re Hubei people, so we really like anything that’s spicy and watery.”

Lan Zhan fell into step with her conversation. “I don’t mind,” he said.

“You’re from upstate?” she said. “Xianxian told me that you were.”

“We grew up back and forth between Long Island and upstate,” Lan Zhan said. “My brother and I are homeschooled.”

“I figured,” she said inoffensively. “You both are so proper. My parents put us through public school, but always made sure we were together as much as we could be.” Her blade went through the roots with a slick chunking sound. “We would come home, and Xianxian would help me in the kitchen. He’s always been really helpful around the house. It’s nice that you two are friends.”

Friends.

Lan Zhan short-circuited.

_ Friends? _

“Friends?” he said. The root in his hands was already clean, but the faucet kept running. That wasn’t right.

“Mn!” Jiang Yanli nodded, eyes still on the roots. For such a delicate-looking girl, her bladework was terrifyingly precise. Lan Zhan had never seen her wield a sword during practice, so here was his first time seeing her prowess.

He gave the root one last absentminded scrub and passed it to her. Both their fingers were wet, and they met for a moment.

“Xianxian is really charismatic,” she said with a touch of pride. “He’s good at getting people to like him. But you know, people who have a lot of friends still mostly have only a few really good, close ones. So I’m glad he’s been opening up to you, especially since he’s bad at opening up to people in general.”

Lan Zhan really hoped his brother didn’t talk so openly about what he was like to other people this way, but he knew he probably already had. Multiple times. Or else they wouldn’t be in this kitchen right now.

Lan Huan was the charismatic one in his family. Shufu was just grumpy and authoritative.

“You take really good care of him,” he said to Jiang Yanli, because it was the truth. Anyone, even blind or deaf, could see the way Wei Ying lit up around his sister, and no wonder. She made people feel safe.

She flushed again.

—

The cooking ran its course, and it must have been an hour by the time they finished making that extra pot of soup. When Jiang Yanli opened the cabinet door, Lan Zhan beat her to it—he reached out and found the chili oil.

“Thank you,” she said to him.

Lan Zhan nodded. “Of course.”

He helped her ladle the soup, leaving Wei Ying’s bowl for last. He upended the chili oil, instantly repulsed by the spicy smell, but let it pour until Jiang Yanli finally said, “Right there! Perfect” and he stopped.

That was...a lot.

It turned the soup red.

“Does he always eat this much?” he said, eyeing Wei Ying’s bowl as though it would transform and jump out at him.

“Sometimes it’s Sriracha, but we haven’t been able to get any here,” she said.

Well, that answered his question.

Wei Ying nudged both Lan Zhan and Jiang Yanli in thanks as they sat on either side of him. “Man, I miss Sriracha,” he said wistfully. “But this is really good too,” he added, looking at the both of them meaningfully.

“Shut up,” Lan Zhan muttered under his breath to Lan Huan, who he knew was looking at him in the most fake-demure way he could, in a look he knew only he ever received.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lan Huan responded mildly, ladling Lan Zhan an extra spoonful of lotus root. “Eat up. It’s Friday.”

“Mn,” said Lan Zhan.

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng said, having heard at least that part of their exchange. “Today’s Friday. Wei Ying, you’re going to pull some new moves today, right? Don’t you dare abandon me.”

“Of course.” Wei Ying grinned, sharp and toothy. “We’re going to beat everyone, and I’ll protect you with my trusty Recorder of Doom.”

Jiang Cheng winced. “You’ll blow half the battlefield away with the sound of that thing, yeah,” he agreed.

Jiang Yanli turned to Lan Zhan. “Are you excited for Capture the Flag tonight?” she asked. “We should team up—Hades, Aphrodite, and Hermes.”

“I already convinced Nico to help,” Wei Ying exclaimed around a mouthful of pork, “but they’ll probably complain about an unfair advantage, since the other side doesn’t have any of the Big Three.”

“Well, it can be us against the rest of the camp,” Jiang Yanli said. “They have strength in numbers, and we’re only three cabins. Even if we counted how large Hermes’s cabin is, that still doesn’t measure up to the rest of the camp.”

Lan Zhan nodded. “I agree to this alliance,” he said. Beside him, Lan Huan shook with silent laughter.

Wei Ying looked at his sister excitedly, for reasons Lan Zhan could not fathom.

She smiled, and like Lan Huan earlier, served him a spoonful of pork rib.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: Not sure if this is common knowledge in the western side of MDZS fandom, but the “chen” in “Bichen” means “dust.” It refers to what is literally called “red dust,” which you’ll find popping up in a lot of poetic or historical texts, including MDZS. In short, it originates from Buddhist thought; it represents the passage of time and “worldly affairs,” which is why you see it translated as such in the official Chen Qing Ling/ Untamed OST.
> 
> Will I be pulling a CQL and abusing the hell out of this metaphor? HA. Haha.
> 
> Also, I’ve elected to make the Lans bougie Long Island Rich Boys with a Summer/ Weekend House Upstate, because Lan Qiren does not play when it comes to isolating his boys and teaching Lan Wangji to be socially awkward.
> 
> My Queens is showing.
> 
> Also, if you think I’m going to make Lan Wangji and Jiang Yanli best, best, best, best, best friends and make them interact as much as humanly possible, you are so fucking right.
> 
> Does the Big House have a kitchen? Too bad, it does now. They Room of Requirement’d it, so there.]


	5. The Big Three's Action Figures

Lan Zhan could taste the soup the rest of the day. Weirdly, it gave him courage. Strange. Jiang Yanli really did make people feel good about themselves, but if he hadn’t been there washing the lotus roots himself, he would have thought she’d doused them in ambrosia.

It definitely contained an edge that most of the food he ate with his brother didn’t have.

He was excited. Not literally vibrating with excitement like Wei Ying was, but he had a healthy dose of readiness, to see what Bichen could really do.

They arrived at the field, him and Lan Huan at his side, where Wei Ying and his siblings were already waiting. Evidently, Wei Ying had wanted a front-row seat; and on top of that, he was able to find his old buddy, Nie Huaisang, quite easily before the rest of Hermes could crowd up the space.

The night was cool. Lan Zhan reveled in it, thinking of home.

Chiron trotted into view, tail whisking briskly through the air. “You know the rules,” he said, eyes dragging over each and every one of them, in case there was someone new who didn’t.

Beside Lan Zhan, Wei Ying popped one last strawberry into his mouth.

“The creek is the boundary line,” Chiron continued. “If you take prisoners, you cannot bind or gag them. Other than that, the whole forest is yours to roam. All magical items are allowed. The flag must be prominently displayed, and no more than two guards are allowed at a time. No killing or maiming. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic.”

Wei Ying nodded enthusiastically, nudging his brother and leaning over to mutter, “He says this every time. It’s like having to read the terms and conditions over and over again.”

And then his other, newer brother arrived fashionably late, which Wei Ying called him out for. “Nico!” he said, waving his arms. “Fashionably late! Hurry up, Chiron’s about to hand out weapons!”

Nico Di Angelo had an unnerving habit of appearing silently, out of nowhere, which Lan Zhan could swear he did on purpose. “You’re going to fight with that?” Nico asked Wei Ying, eyeing his Recorder of Doom. “That’ll shatter.”

“Not if I summon those fumes like I did the other day.” Wei Ying grinned, delighted at the thought of wreaking havoc by literally lifting a few fingers. “I showed you before we went to bed last night. Do you think I could summon Greek fire with this if I tried?”

The blood in Nico Di Angelo’s already-bloodless face drained, as though horrified at the thought of Wei Ying having control over something that wild. “Uh,” he said.

Thankfully, as Wei Ying flung his arms affectionately around his new, shorter brother, Chiron raised his arms, and the picnic tables were covered in weapons and armor. For once, Lan Zhan and his brother would not have to fight for a mediocre sword—Bichen hummed sedately in his hand, as though regarding these weapons with polite interest.

_ You really needn’t bother,  _ he thought at it, but Bichen only hummed some more in response.

Wei Ying dove headfirst into the pile, opening a path for Nie Huaisang, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli. Lan Zhan, at this point, was not terribly interested in what Jiang Cheng chose as a weapon, as he would dive in with the usual amount of frustrated vigor no matter what he had in his hand; but Jiang Yanli, he was piqued to see, chose a spear. With her slight frame, a sword would have suited her just fine; she could be one of those fighters who danced with each brush of the blade, but no. A spear. Hm.

Well, he supposed it had a long reach, which would pick off people from afar and keep her hands clean...

Wei Ying chose a sword and a blade.

Lan Zhan was interrupted from his observation by Lan Huan rematerializing at his side. “Don’t forget armor, A-Zhan,” he said, handing him their armor. Tonight, it was blue.

“Wouldn’t forget,” Lan Zhan muttered, grateful that his brother had done the thing he absolutely did forget to do just now.

“So motivated,” sighed someone over his shoulder. He and his brother turned; it was their cabin leader, the one filling in for Piper McLean...if Piper came back at all. Valentina Diaz. She was checking her nails already. “I’m glad you’ve still got that fire in you, you Lans,” she said. “I think most of our siblings are going to be gossiping by the creek tonight.”

“Like every week,” Lan Zhan stated. Another degree of separation between him and his new siblings—they cared less for Capture the Flag, and spent each Friday sitting things out. He knew several of them, like Valentina, had seen enough war and could hold their own, but...would it not be prudent to practice as much as they could, in order to maintain their skills?

She waved a hand, but for all her attempts at keeping a cool facade, she cracked and ended up giggling at him. “Y’all are adorable,” she said. “Have fun, guys.”

“We will,” said Lan Huan cheerfully, and Lan Zhan elected to turn back to the tables, strapping his armor on in silence.

The blue plumes on their helmets, quite frankly, looked ridiculous. But he supposed that the image of an army of Greek demigods marching off to battle in a tidal wave of matching helmets was intimidating, back during the Battle of Manhattan.

The head counselor of Hermes’s cabin, Connor Stoll, beckoned to Jiang Yanli as he huddled with Nico and Valentina. As Lan Zhan hovered close enough to hear them, he caught their conversation. Of course, Valentina started it with a thinly-veiled opt-out that fooled no one.

“The Aphrodite kids and I will be guarding the creek, in case anyone decides to go there,” she said. “Except the Lans—it’ll be good for the fresh meat to cut their teeth on a game with their new swords.”

“Yes, the creek. Guarding,” Connor Stoll said. “That’s what’s happening. Thanks so much, Valentina.”

She gave a small bow in response.

“That’s why you’re here, Yanli,” he said. Jiang Yanli only looked surprised enough for Lan Zhan to realize that she must have had this talk with Connor beforehand, and still could not quite believe that this was happening. “It was your idea to ally us with Aphrodite and Hades tonight, to give us the advantage of the Big Three’s powers while going up against everyone else’s strength in numbers. Let’s see how this works out. Nico, I can’t tell you what to do, but she already has a strategy laid out, so let’s follow her example tonight.”

“You’re already pitting me against my boyfriend,” Nico pointed out. “I have nothing left to lose.”

“And you get dual Hades power with your new brother tonight,” said Connor. “So try to have some fun with trying to win, okay?”

Nico shrugged. “Yeah, of course. I’ve always wanted to beat Will at something.”

Jiang Yanli smiled diplomatically, but Lan Zhan knew from the interaction he had had with her that she was nervous. Not for the first time, he wondered what kind of household raised their daughter to be more tactful than a fully-grown, matured adult.

“I’ll do my best,” she said politely.

Connor, who, Lan Zhan remembered, was one of the oldest demigods at Camp Half-Blood now and who was a younger brother himself, said, “There’s no point in playing the same game every week if we can’t switch things up a bit. We trust you, but also got your back.” He clapped her and Nico and the shoulder, then turned to Valentina and clapped her on the shoulder too.

So they began, with Jiang Yanli at the helm alongside Connor Stoll and Nico Di Angelo, while Valentina led the Aphrodite cabin into the woods and the indubitably very dangerous boundary line of the creek.

“That’s my sister!” Wei Ying announced to anyone who would listen, his free hand slapping Jiang Cheng’s arm over and over in excitement. “ _ And  _ that’s my brother!” He pointed in a big, sweeping motion towards Nico, just to emphasize the newest addition to his pride.

“I’m your brother too,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Yes, Jiang Cheng, you’re okay too,” Wei Ying said, as they began to march.

“Tsch!” Jiang Cheng said. Lan Zhan could not quite see his face from this angle, but he was sure he was rolling his eyes. How could one person exert his eyeballs this much without them falling out?

Nie Huaisang—oh, he was still here—merely laughed from his place beside the two of them. “Wei-laoban, you can’t just collect brothers like action figures.”

“Watch me,” Wei Ying said. They exchanged a knowing look. “Isn’t your brother versing us in the Ares cabin?”

“Yes, so you have to protect me, okay?” Nie Huaisang said seriously. “But not too hard, because then he’ll get mad that I found another older brother and replaced him.”

“Deal.” They bumped fists.

“We’re going to establish Zeus’s Fist as our stronghold,” Jiang Yanli announced to them as they went. “So get ready to climb.”

Drowning Wei Ying’s whining to a pleasant buzz, Lan Zhan focused on climbing the rocky uphill without bending his back too much, of course. He and Lan Huan glided up the mountain, where Connor Stoll planted the blue flag in full view of the camp.

“A-Cheng and Huaisang will guard the flag,” Jiang Yanli decided. “Can you two switch clothes with Nico and A-Xian?”

“What?” A-Cheng and Huaisang said, one sounding more scandalized than the other.

“If they think both of the children of the Big Three are here, they’ll be more careful about coming up the hill,” Connor said. “Then we can ambush them...”

“And pick them off from the shadows,” Nico said. His eyes narrowed in delight, probably at the thought of tripping up his sunshine boyfriend first.

Jiang Cheng sighed dramatically. “If I have to, Jie,” he grumped. “Wei Ying’s clothes are always so baggy.”

“Because you’re so short,” Wei Ying laughed, already shirtless. How did he do that? Lan Zhan studied his skinny frame. He had a pale, bony torso, and he was as lean as he seemed when he had clothes on. What was Lan Zhan expecting?—a six-pack? Wei Ying was slender; he fought gracefully, not like the Ares kids. Lan Zhan wondered how much he could lift in one go, if he could even lift Nie Mingjue’s giant blade, Baxia. Anyway, strength was not always the most important thing on the battlefield...

He audibly sighed, clearing his mind. Thankfully, Wei Ying had not noticed the attention Lan Zhan had just paid him; he was busy switching clothes with Jiang Cheng, while Nico exchanged clothes with Huaisang. Nico was pale as well. The sons of Hades followed a theme.

“Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng, take this.” Wei Ying pulled the knife he had taken from the table earlier from his sash and handed it to his brother.

“Wei Ying, why are you giving this to me?” Jiang Cheng seemed more...perplexed, than insulted. That was something.

“Well, I can fight with this sword and Recorder of Doom,” Wei Ying said, brandishing the flute before remembering that people could potentially see from the bottom of Zeus’s Fist. “So I specifically chose this knife, because its shape looks like it from the distance. I figured Jie would have us make a switch or something, since everyone’s going to have their eye on me and Nico tonight.”

“I bet the Ares kids are gonna try to ambush us,” Nico snorted. “Or Will. No, wait.” He dramatically took a pause to reconsider his words. “He’s too smart for that.” He turned to Jiang Yanli and Connor Stoll. “Will might choose to shoot from the trees or wear us down with a slow, upward march. So he’ll either pick us off from the darkness, or distract us while the Ares kids do a charge up here.”

Connor nodded. “That checks. So we’ll need you and Wei Ying to lead two flanks into the trees to sneak into their side and get the flag.”

“I pick Lan Huan as my partner in crime,” Nico said suddenly. Everyone looked at him. “What?” he said, shrugging. “He has a cool sword.”

Lan Huan blushed pleasantly. “I’ll do my best,” he promised. Lan Zhan resisted pulling a Jiang Cheng and rolling his eyes; he was a better little brother than that.

Jiang Yanli smiled demurely, and Lan Zhan was learning slowly to take apart each of her demure smiles and figure out when it was out of kindness and when it was out of tact. “Then it’s only appropriate that A-Xian goes with A-Zhan,” she said.

He opened his mouth to object to being called such a thing by someone other than Lan Huan, but realized once he had done so that he really had no complaints about it at all.

Only to be jolted back out of that sense of security by Wei Ying’s fingers trickling a path up his chin. “Don’t catch flies,” Wei Ying said, pushing his jaw closed. “You can do that after we get the flag.”

Lan Zhan looked to his brother for guidance, but Lan Huan only smiled. Damn him.

That’s right. As Wei Ying led him away yet again, he thought, yes. Damn him. This was his first battle with his mother’s gift in hand. This was the first time he was wrenched away from his brother. This was his first time leading anything that wasn’t one of Shufu’s home lessons or punishments.

And, these woods were  _ filled  _ with monsters.

He took a deep inhale of the trees in the night.

Pine.

—

Jiang Yanli dispatched a team of a mix of Hermes kids led by Lan Zhan and Wei Ying. Lan Zhan gave his brother a fleeting glance as they departed down opposite sides of Zeus’s fist, and once they hit ground level with the woods, his team split again into a smaller unit.

True to Nico’s word, as soon as that unit broke off into the forest, the satisfyingly soft zing sounds began singing from the canopy; Will really had placed his archers in the trees. But they were expecting to pick off one group coming down from Zeus’s Fist; they had not caught onto that group quickly divvying themselves up. So while that group dove in, distracting Apollo’s archers, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying stealthily sank a new path through the woods.

It was all according to plan, of course: While they snuck in, Jiang Yanli and Connor Stoll would creep in behind them, so if Lan Zhan and Wei Ying’s unit were somehow discovered or overpowered while fighting whoever was guarding the enemy’s flag, their much smaller members could sneak in through the path they had opened up and snatch up the flag while the guards were distracted. It was not foolproof, but no plan is. As far as Lan Zhan was concerned, it was the tactical equivalent of feinting with one hand, then the other, only for the opponent to realize, too late, that they were being upended by a well-placed foot.

It did not take long before Wei Ying tapped Lan Zhan’s shoulder, but he needn’t have—they both spotted it at the same time. “There!” They looked at each other, nodding. The red flag was in the distance, guarded by two from...Lan Zhan squinted. One from Dionysus’s cabin, and one Nie Mingjue.

“Nie Mingjue’s gonna freak when he realizes that it’s Huaisang standing on that rock,” Wei Ying murmured, in the lowest voice Lan Zhan had ever heard him speak in. He quite enjoyed it.

He tensed, hand on Bichen’s cool hilt. Wei Ying raised his Recorder of Doom to his lips. “On Lan Zhan’s signal,” he said to the rest of the Hermes kids, who nodded assent. Now for the final dash.

“NOW!”

Lan Zhan whipped out his sword, not because he had said anything, but because that voice had come from nowhere. Shapes apparated out of the trees, as he realized that they were surrounded by an Athena-planned ambush.

And then there were—

“Snares?” Wei Ying screamed, outraged, as suddenly Lan Zhan’s world turned upside down. “SNARES?”

Lan Zhan found himself dangling by his foot, looking straight into the gray eyes of one smug child of Athena. Training took hold; every little sit-up Lan Huan had told him was not necessary helped Lan Zhan pull against the gravity of his own body. He bent towards his foot, where the noose held him captive.

“Oh no, you don’t!” The Athena kid slapped him.  _ Slapped  _ him. And that was all it took to distract him, leaving him flailing Bichen at the Athena kid.

_ This is not supposed to be how it happened,  _ he thought, frustrated. They were supposed to engage with Nie Mingjue and that child of Dionysus before anything fell through. He only hoped that Lan Huan and Nico were having better luck—

The sudden screams coming from the other side of the forest were not assuring in the least.

_ Great. _

Bichen was still humming, more insistently now, like it was chiding him. That was nonsense. He only wished it could unsheathe itself too—

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying was busy beating Athena’s children back with his Recorder of Doom, swinging wildly back and forth to pummel them away from the trapped Hermes kids as well. “Bichen’s talking! Bichen’s talking!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Lan Zhan barked back. But his panic eased. The world seemed to slow down as he relaxed into this exchange with Wei Ying. Not really thinking anymore, he raised his arm so Bichen’s hilt pointed up.

Bichen unsheathed.

It did it itself, floating with unsuppressed glee—because this inanimate object had a will—in the air, slicing the snare from his ankle.

As Lan Zhan dropped into the perfect handstand—another thing Shufu had told him would most assuredly come in handy later—Bichen flew into a whirlwind, cutting loose his teammates while those smug little Athena’s kids gray eyes widened in unbelief.

And because while he was a better little brother than Jiang Cheng was, he decided that he was certainly more elegantly dramatic than him too, concentrating all his abdominal muscles to flip out of his handstand into a physically almost-impossible kick; he took down several fully-armed Athena’s children on his way to Wei Ying, where he caught him in his arms and raised his sheath, receiving Bichen as it tucked itself snugly back into place.

He brushed invisible wounds off Wei Ying’s arms as he righted him; his heart was hammering against his ribs from adrenaline.

Wei Ying patted him in thanks before he raised Recorder of Doom to his lips. As the Athena campers began screaming in alarm—something about an “emergency formation!”—smoke furled from the ground.

Whatever emergency formation the architects of Camp Half-Blood had formulated was worthless if it were stopped before they could even begin it; Lan Zhan had never been so relieved to hear a recorder—not just Recorder of Doom, but  _ any  _ recorder—as they were halted in their tracks, the coils of smoke dragging their feet down.

Wei Ying could not afford to part the Recorder of Doom from his lips; but he glanced at Lan Zhan, eyes flashing red, and Lan Zhan understood. He raised his hand. Lan Huan had clearly been waylaid, but the red flag was tantalizingly close.

“This way!” he said to their Hermes unit, and Wei Ying nodded.

Lan Zhan whipped around, facing the flag, and charged.

Nie Mingjue saw them coming from a mile away—of course he did. They had planted their flag in the middle of a clearing, making themselves easy to see but hard to sneak up on. No matter. They had heard the screaming and seen the smoke furling a while ago.

Nothing left to do now, except lead the charge.

Lan Zhan darted forward the moment Nie Mingjue did, the latter slicing the air with that ridiculous blade the width of a dinner plate. Baxia, it was called. Nie Mingjue spun the blade in cycles, kicking up dirt on his way, but Lan Zhan’s smaller sword was meant to be wielded with a different kind of deftness.

Just as Nie Mingjue reached him, Lan Zhan leaped into the air, stepping on his head. Nie Mingjue let out a frustrated yell as Lan Zhan made a split decision: The flag was still guarded by the son of Dionysus, who was clearly playing goalie and standing his ground.

No matter.

With a brief prayer of thanks to his mother, he pointed his sheath, and told Bichen where to go.

Bichen shot out with merely a thought, zipped a clean cut right through the pole that held up the flag. The son of Dionysus nearly jumped out of his skin, and Lan Zhan had only a brief moment to smile—just a mere twitch of the lip—before Nie Mingjue evidently came to his senses and cut him down.

Lan Zhan hit the ground with a thud. It was only a cut, he told himself. It was only a cut. But he had never bled so much in his life.

Distantly, he heard Recorder of Doom.

It was within range! He looked back, and there was Wei Ying, eyes glittering, hair flying as he locked eyes with him, a satisfied smirk on his lips. Behind him, chaos as demigods fought each other. But their Hermes unit was untouched.

Jiang Yanli and Connor Stoll exploded out of that crowd as they led their team forward. Lan Zhan ripped his gaze away. There was still the matter of the guards to take care of.

He ducked as Nie Mingjue swiped at him again with Baxia, dropping and sliding, then whirling around to graze his ankles with Bichen. Just graze, not maim. Nie Mingjue spun around, eyes wild, and Lan Zhan tried to lift himself up from his now vulnerable position.

“Tell your brother I said hi,” Nie Mingjue said, and brought Baxia down.

Lan Zhan knew that Nie Mingjue would play by the rules, no matter how savagely he fought; he would not maim or seriously injure Lan Zhan. But he was not keen on receiving whatever a son of Ares would define as “definitely not that serious a wound,” and he only had so much arm strength to deflect the blow.

As he struggled to unsheathe Bichen again, Recorder of Doom screeched to a halt. Wei Ying called his name.

He was too far away.

A knife spun past Nie Mingjue’s ear anyway. A second knocked into his hand, just striking enough so that Nie Mingjue keeled over, dropping Baxia as blood appeared on the webbing between his fingers.

Wei Ying appeared, in an explosion of lotus smell and cool night air. “Jie!” he called over his shoulder. “The flag! Hurry!” He flung a couple more knives over Lan Zhan’s shoulder, undoubtedly striking the son of Dionysus in all the right points. “Lan Zhan, are you okay?” Hands that felt like the night air turned his arm over, smoothing the lines where his flesh was dissected, unflinching in the face of warm blood.

Lan Zhan flinched back, but Wei Ying held firm. “It looks shallow.” Though he was doing what Lan Zhan could accurately call  _ fretting,  _ Wei Ying was perfectly calm. “It’s just very long,” he observed, running gentle fingers up and down the length of his sleeve before rolling it back. “It’s not crazy shallow, but if we get a healer like Wen Qing on it, it won’t scar.”

“I’m fine,” Lan Zhan retorted, ears flaming. He did not need to be babied over his first battle wound, received in such a controlled environment. But Wei Ying shook his head.

“Yeah, you are,” Wei Ying said. “But we still gotta care for our own. Thanks for catching me back there. I’m just sort of...returning the favor.”

A cheer rang out all around them. They twisted their heads in unison to see the Hermes kids celebrating, as Jiang Yanli and Connor Stoll carried the flag proudly between them. The red banner shone until it turned silver. A caduceus, the symbol of Hermes and Cabin Eleven, appeared on its surface.

“Ah,” Wei Ying said. “We won.” Lan Zhan looked back at him, at Wei Ying, who was still staring at that silver flag with shining eyes, his mouth and cheeks pulled into a dimpled smile.

—

Nico Di Angelo emerged from the forest, grumbling something as Will Solace supported him. They had both been cut in the leg, and sported some nasty bruises on their necks and shoulders.

Will was in the middle of apologizing. “I didn’t mean to, Nico,” he said. “But you know...you really did hit hard when you realized which tree I was up.”

Nico grumbled something under his breath.

“What was that?” Will said.

“I’m sorry too,” Nico grumbled, a bit more audibly.

Will nudged his cheek softly, and Nico’s face flickered in the ghost of a smile.

“NICO!”

Lan Zhan felt a breeze as Wei Ying zoomed to his brother, nearly knocking Will backwards as he clutched at Nico’s face, checking his neck. “Who did this? Do I have to cut a bitch?”

“My boyfriend!” Nico threw him off, in what Lan Zhan assumed was a fond gesture. “What happened to you? The Athena kids...they don’t look too good.”

_ Don’t look too good? _

Nico was eyeing Recorder of Doom suspiciously. Lan Zhan followed his gaze as he turned his head towards the children of Athena, who were stumbling out of the woods now. They looked dazed and confused. That should not be.  _ They  _ weren’t the ones who were ambushed.

Faster than even Wei Ying could react, Nico raised a hand. The children of Athena froze in place. Black smoke coiled from their clothes, siphoning back into Nico’s hand. He frowned in concentration as he collected it all, and the smoke thinned out; then, he upturned his palm. With the smoke under his control, it twisted out from the flat of his palm, which was now a platform for the small smoke figures forming on it.

They were miniatures of the Athena kids. Bichen flew over their hands, scattering them. They opened their tiny mouths, as big as the mouths of baby birds, shouting for the emergency formation.

Suddenly, lines of smoke snaking around them. The figures turned on each other, and began slashing with their swords.

Nico closed his fingers over his palm, collecting the play back into himself. “Wei Ying,” he said, “you’ve only been in camp for a few months.”

“Yes?” Wei Ying said, raising an eyebrow.

Behind them, Jiang Yanli and Connor Stoll were being hailed for their success, and he was clearly itching to join them. Lan Zhan, however, was more transfixed on what Nico had just seen.

Wei Ying had invaded the minds of his foes, and forced them to turn against one another. That was a power the children of Aphrodite should have, but what did Hades know about influencing the hearts and minds of others? Something was amiss.

Nico was still staring at Wei Ying as Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang emerged from the trees. Wei Ying tapped his foot impatiently, clearly wanting to join them, but wanting to respect his new brother too. “What’s up, Nico?”

Finally, Nico said, slowly, “This is the weirdest gift Dad has given anyone. And he tried to save my life by sticking me in a casino for the better part of a century.”

Wei Ying smiled adorably. “That’s a nice gift. I should take good care of it.”

“Well, yeah.” Nico was still frowning. If Lan Zhan could hazard a guess, he would say that he was concerned. “But just...be careful, okay? This kind of power is hard to control.”

But Wei Ying’s head was screwing and unscrewing like a bottle cap more and more—back and forth between him and where Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang were checking on Nie Mingjue. “I will,” Wei Ying said, “if you promise to teach me how to control skeletons. Deal?”

Nico sighed, and smiled a soft smile at him, moved to fondness. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll try.”

Wei Ying made some more noises through his nose, patting his edgelord brother on the head. “Pap pap,” was the noise. And then he dashed off to join his dramatic brother.

“He’s smart enough to hold his own,” Will told Nico, as though he knew exactly what was making him frown more consistently than usual.

“Yeah,” Nico said. “I just...wonder what Dad’s thinking by giving him that gift.”

Lan Zhan finally tore his attention away, spotting Lan Huan. “Ge!” he said, raising his voice infinitesimally. Lan Huan, used to listening to barely-audible speech, heard him.

Although his team was limping, he strode forward with perfect fluidity. Shuoyue gleamed in his hand, as though excited to greet Bichen and boast about their victories.

“A-Zhan,” Lan Huan called. “Your arm.” His eyes flicked to the wound Nie Mingjue had left.

“He said hi,” Lan Zhan said.

Lan Huan let a puff of breath out through his nose, his way of laughing after a battle that should have left him too tired to do so. “You should get Wen Qing to look at that,” he said.

“Mm.” Lan Zhan nodded. The children of Apollo were still trickling out, but he could afford to enjoy his victory before Wen Qing got to him.

Together again, he and his brother joined the outskirts of the crowd that had boosted Jiang Yanli, Connor Stoll, and Nico Di Angelo on their shoulders. Valentina Diaz was waiting at the edge as well.

“Great work, guys,” she said, and she meant it, but she was also checking her nails while she said it. “You guys fight beautifully. We saw it from the creek.” She winked at Lan Huan, and Lan Zhan very briefly wanted to be sick. “You’ve earned your reputation, Huan.”

Thankfully, the gods decided to change the subject at that very moment, because someone called out, “Look!”

Jiang Yanli, still on the shoulders of her teammates, looked to the sky. There was a deep rumble in the clouds, and the hair on Lan Zhan’s neck stood on end.

Then, as quickly as the shock came, it subsided.

Jiang Yanli held out her hand, as though expecting to catch something. There was nothing. The demigods began to look nervous. Was this when spring would stop?

But that couldn’t be. Lan Zhan didn’t think so, at least. There was something else at play.  _ Jiang Yanli is about to be claimed,  _ he thought.

“Hey.” Jiang Yanli’s voice was soft. “Guys? Let me down.”

The demigods hastened to obey, unsure what was happening. But Lan Zhan had already reached a conclusion.

_ The son of lightning. _

Jiang Yanli took her first dainty steps on the ground towards her brothers, reaching a hand out to Jiang Cheng, and the other to Wei Ying. She gathered them in a line, so the three of them—siblings, divided only by birthright—stood shoulder to shoulder. Together.

Lightning struck the ground at her feet, and Jiang Cheng was the only one who flinched. But his siblings held him fast. Lan Zhan relished the comically large size his eyes could reach as he tried to compose himself.

It struck again, this time at Jiang Cheng’s feet. He flinched again, though less visibly.

And one last time, and this time it stayed. It hit Jiang Yanli directly on the crown of her head, and though Wei Ying screamed, “Jie!” she only tightened her hand on his reassuringly. The lightning was around her, around Jiang Cheng, covering them in a shroud of brilliant purple light.

Wei Ying stood outside of it, and yet, Jiang Yanli never let go of him.

Lan Zhan understood. And, it seemed, so did everyone else around him. Amid gasps, one by one, each demigod dropped to their knees.

Neither he nor Lan Huan needed further bidding; they joined them, landing on a single knee, eyes on the three siblings as the lightning faded away. Wei Ying seemed to be holding a tree branch in his hands. Another gift?

“Jie...”

“Sh.” Jiang Yanli, despite her moment of brilliance, looked around at them all. “You don’t have to bow.”

But Nico, son of Hades, rose first. “You showed leadership tonight,” he said. “Like your father. And now he’s claiming you for showing the strength of the king of the Olympians.”

Jiang Cheng’s face seemed torn between two ways of emoting—proud and shocked. Pity he had to choose only one at a time, to properly express everything as explosively as he could.

Wei Ying, on the other hand, was thrilled.

“Jie!” he said, hugging his sister tight. “You and Jiang Cheng are the children of Zeus!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: This fic has just turned into Putting Every Side Character in PJO in the Spotlight While the Main Characters Become Cameos. Because they deserve it.
> 
> “Wei-laoban”—I think “Wei-xiong” can be applied jokingly nowadays, but since we’re using fond, ironic nicknames for people anyway, modern!Nie Huaisang would totally call Wei Wuxian “Laoban.” AKA, “Boss Wei.”
> 
> I just realized I may or may not be turning Valentina into an airhead. I, uh...am not trying to. Let’s see if we can get more scenes out of her that don’t involve Lan Xichen being the hottest boy in camp, shall we?
> 
> cascadedEquilibrium commented earlier, saying that their guess for the son of lightning is A-Yuan, and lemme just say, you’re much, much smarter than me. I hadn’t even thought of that.]


	6. You're a good friend, Lan Zhan, you're a good friend, you'reagOOdfRIEnD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lan Zhan.exe has stopped working.

Wen Qing slapped Wei Ying’s hand away from Lan Zhan’s wound, while Lan Zhan waited patiently for her to finish bandaging it. “Don’t touch it,” she snapped. “Wen Ning! I’m going to need a bit more antiseptic.”

“Okay, Jiejie.” Wen Ning zoomed off while Wei Ying, already distracted from Wen Qing’s slap, made  _ nyoom _ ing noises.

Wen Qing rolled her eyes. “Eat the ambrosia,” she said. It was a statement, not an offer. Lan Zhan obediently picked up the square and gave it a dainty nibble. Immediately, he was flooded with the taste of the water ginseng soup, the first taste under the harvest moon during the Mid-Autumn festival. Then a rose taste—the ambrosia turned back the wheel, so he tasted Jiuniang cakes, which only came in the spring. It went from fresh and mild to flaky and the right amount of moist on dry.

“I want some,” Wei Ying whined, reaching out. Wen Ning slapped them away again.

“If you want to burn yourself to a lump of ash, be my guest,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be bothering your brother right now?”

“Which one?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe either one, but maybe the one that just  _ got fucking claimed by Zeus.” _

Wei Ying considered her words seriously, nodding up and down. “Hm, yes. You’re right,” he said, also very seriously. He gave Lan Zhan’s injury a pat, over where Wen Qing had already wrapped a tight layer of gauze. “Want me to kiss it better?” He winked.

Lan Zhan popped the whole square of ambrosia into his mouth.

“Oh my  _ gods,”  _ Wen Qing screeched, giving him a well-placed pound to the back; against his will, Lan Zhan spit the square up in the most sloppy, undignified way possible, and oh gods, Wei Ying  _ saw.  _ He brought his sleeve up to his mouth, wiping it, and then became scandalized with himself for doing it. “Do you want to fry yourself to death?” Wen Qing snapped at him, tightening the next layer of gauze punishingly tight; Lan Zhan winced, but he hoped he did it beautifully.

Of course Wei Ying burst out laughing. He patted Lan Zhan’s head. “I guess you’re fine after all,” he said. “Wen Qing will take care of you.”

Wen Qing rolled her eyes, but with less exaggerated exasperation, and Wei Ying zoomed off to find his angry brother.

“That idiot isn’t subtle at all,” she remarked to Lan Zhan, as if in an afterthought. She didn’t seem to be the type who gossiped.

_ Subtle?  _ Lan Zhan shifted one of his eyebrows a millimeter above its usual place on his face. No, he wasn’t, but...about what? “Subtle?” he echoed back at her.

“Yeah, of course. That he—” Wen Qing’s eyes widened (wider than they already were) as she realized something completely invisible to Lan Zhan. “Oh, you don’t—” She tilted her head, mouth paused in mid-talk, before she shook her head. “So you don’t know.”

_ Know what?  _ But then Wen Ning arrived back on the scene, antiseptic in his hands, and Lan Zhan had to focus on the sting as Wen Qing washed the rest of his wound.

Wen Ning was a tall baby. His cheeks were round, his eyes innocent. But he was Lan Zhan’s height, maybe even a little taller. And not only were his eyes innocent—they were shifty as he sat by his sister’s side, watching her work. He talked to her, the way siblings do, about this and that. “Wei Ying helped me with archery the other day,” he said, brightening at the memory. “And his sister invited me to go make some soup with them, but I was busy. Jie, we should go.”

“They’re having a moment, Wen Ning,” she said absently, all focus still on the antiseptic. “You know how their parents are—they don’t talk about it, but there’s some obvious bad blood there. Something something parentage, something something Wei Ying’s mom, something something the Jiangs’ mom being jealous. And then it turns out that she was the one who cheated on their dad with Zeus.”

Then she fell silent, as though she remembered that Lan Zhan was still there, hearing every word. She pulled the bandage too tight again; it was either fear of being reprimanded or fear of losing more face that had Lan Zhan fighting the urge to flinch.

“Anyway, we shouldn’t gossip,” Wen Qing said, as an afterthought.

Wen Ning nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “Anyway, Lan-er,” he said, so painfully obviously trying to change the subject. “This cut isn’t bad. But why would your brother’s best friend cut you so deeply?”

_ Nie Mingjue is extra,  _ Lan Zhan thought, and wondered when the  _ fuck  _ he’d added the word “extra” to his vocabulary. “He is from Ares,” he reminded Wen Ning.

Most people needed to ask for him to elaborate, but Wen Ning nodded immediately. “Oh, that’s right...his standard for a bad injury must be more extreme than most other people’s.”

They lapsed back into a strangely unawkward silence, and yet it couldn’t stop the warmth crawling up Lan Zhan’s neck. Wen Ning is a good noodle, he decided. But also, when the  _ fuck  _ did he start using the term “good noodle.”

Wen Qing gave his bandages a light pat. “There you go,” she said. “Off you go. Don’t hang around Mingjue unless you’re ready to fight back a little harder.”

“She means fight harder,” Wen Ning translated.

Perhaps Lan Zhan should feel a little insulted by the insinuation that he was not a good fighter, or at least not on par with what Wen Qing expected, but...Wen Qing’s sleeve was shining from the inside, and he was sure they were her needles, which she used both in combat and healing. In the words of D-O, the newest money grab from Star Wars—no thank you.

Wei Ying was talking about it with Nie Huaisang the other day, so of course now he understood more and more these pop cultural references they rattled off. Apparently, D-O was a small bot of some sort, of the kind the blue-and-silver dome one and the golden humanoid one were. Apparently, it was very cute, and reminded Wei Ying of Nie Huaisang. Apparently, it reminded Nie Huaisang of Wei Ying.

Wei Ying was so popular. It wasn’t just with Nie Huaisang—it was the whole camp. When he wasn’t beaming in the faces of the adoring Apollo kids, he was goofing off with either one of his brothers, or showing someone up on the archery field. Even Nie Mingjue and Clarisse La Rue gave him grudging looks of approval when he bested the Ares kids at sword fighting. Oh, right. He bested the Ares kids at sword fighting. Lan Zhan had never seen him lose.

That gave him an idea.

The night was still young, and everyone was full of young energy—almost everyone, of course. He was sure Clarisse La Rue and Annabeth Chase were only awake for leadership duties, but they moved with a kind of slowness that apparently came with approaching your twenties (and Lan Zhan was not looking forward to that in the least). In any case, he wasn’t sure where Wei Ying and his siblings had gone, so he approached Annabeth Chase, who, by his understanding, usually knew where things were.

“Excuse me,” he said politely.

Annabeth took a moment to give her Athena siblings one last order, then turned to him. Like her siblings, she had their mother’s gray eyes, which easily drifted between storm and sky. Perhaps he should feel intimidated that he was speaking to a legend—“the architect of Olympus!” Nie Huaisang would squeal—but she was just a slightly older kid with an older-sister vibe.

“You’re Zhan, right?” she guessed.

“Lan Zhan,” he said. He knew it was normal to call everyone by their given name, but he had gone through most of his life with it spoken in a whole; even his brother followed the two-beat rhythm of it, calling him A-Zhan to keep it syllable count.

Annabeth nodded, understanding, as Athena kids were wont to do. “Lan Zhan,” she clarified. “Nice work tonight. Nida said you took her down while in a handstand. That’s some athleticism you wouldn’t expect from Aphrodite’s kids.”

Again with the cabins. “My mother is passionate,” he said.

Annabeth—perhaps out of context—pieced together his meaning, albeit slower than Wen Ning had. “You’re right,” she decided. “I don’t think even Ares’s kids could’ve pulled that off.”

Marginally heartened, he pressed forth. “Thank you,” he said. His uncle always told him to accept a compliment when he heard one. “I am looking for Wei Ying.”

In a flash, her eyebrow went up, then back down, like she was forcing it to relax. “Of course,” she said.

_ Of course? Of course what?  _ Lan Zhan thought warily.

But, as it turned out, it was merely a turn of phrase. Annabeth continued, “We’re having our nightly sing-a-long in the amphitheater. Wei Ying and his siblings are always there. You’ve never been?”

Her question was not nosy.

“My brother has,” Lan Zhan replied. “I haven’t.” Because of the crowds.

Again, she nodded in some sort of understanding beyond him. “Well, that’s where you’ll find them,” she said. “And it’s actually pretty fun. Everyone’s super friendly, even the Ares kids.”

His brother told him that he didn’t have to do what he didn’t want to, and so had also encouraged him to participate in these activities while never physically nudging him into it. That this stranger Annabeth had the sense to do the same...was...a first. Still, it was a new experience, and though he wanted to see Wei Ying, he also needed to go into this situation armed. So he quickly dipped back into his cabin and retrieved the guqin Wei Ying had wrangled out of nowhere for him. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered how Will Solace had gotten this very generous gift that would normally cost hundreds. The children of Apollo had their ways, he supposed. And Wei Ying was clever. He could practically charmspeak—sweet-talk someone into bringing the price down. Should they perhaps have swapped godly parents?

In any case, he followed that thin trail of youthful demigods into the amphitheater, where his brother raised his eyebrow at the sight of him emerging of his own free will.

But Wei Ying was in the other (round) corner, sitting with his Jiang siblings while his edgelord brother gallivanted off with his boyfriend, so Lan Huan wouldn’t mind if he only gave him a look and swept off, right? He would understand. And anyway, Lan Huan was sitting with Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao, so it wasn’t like Lan Zhan was about to be part of their conversation.

The Jiang siblings stopped whispering and gossiping amongst themselves as they realized Lan Zhan was approaching. Perhaps he was intruding, and his gut wrenched with shame and embarrassment at the idea, but gods, he was already there, so why stop now? Luckily, Wei Ying’s eyes brightened as he patted the spot beside him.

“Hey, Wen Ning,” Wei Ying said, patting the boy next to him. “Scooch over, yeah? Lan Zhan wants to sit here.”

“Mm, of course.” Wen Ning moved his considerable mass over—he was tall, and his largeness was emphasized by how small his voice was—clearing a spot right by Wei Ying. Wei Ying patted it invitingly, and for the first time Lan Zhan could admit, he rather enjoyed the attention and enthusiasm he gave him at the mere sight of him.

Lan Zhan sat carefully at his side, but there was only so much space; their thighs touched. Strangely, he did not mind this contact with someone other than his brother. Although he felt squeezed in by the whole camp being around them, at least he knew Wei Ying.

“I miss bubble tea,” Wei Ying said brightly. “I lived in Queens with my family before this, so we had a bubble tea place like five minutes away in every direction. Do you ever wanna come visit? We could, like, go to one of the bubble tea places that’re still open at midnight. I’ll treat you.”

Wei Ying really had no place being so generous. “I sleep at nine every night,” Lan Zhan informed him.

To his surprise, Wei Ying laughed like a very clear, glass bell. “Well, yeah, bubble tea places are open before nine too, silly,” he said cheerily. “Hey, do you wanna play some music? Since you brought the guqin?” But before Lan Zhan could even  _ think  _ of forming a response, Wei Ying had already whipped out Recorder of Doom, shaking his head from side to side as he shook his hair out of his eyes. He had messy hair, Lan Zhan realized, that was ebony-black, like his, but shone red in the light of the massive bonfire in the center. The fire changed color every night to reflect the mood of the campers: Because they were the satisfied kind of tired, like a particularly slow and cheek-pulling lull to sleep, it sputtered in a natural, warm orange.

Wei Ying’s skin thrived in that color. There was a reason he hung around Apollo’s cabin so often, siphoning that sunlight until it rolled out of him. Lan Zhan thought it was a shame no one could take a photo of him at that moment; but then again, a camera’s mirrors and mechanics would do a shabby job of capturing what Lan Zhan was looking at at that moment.

“Lan Zhan? Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying shook his hair out of his eyes again, his bangs bouncing. The bonfire turned his eyes into twin flames; Lan Zhan caught orange, and amber, and the gray center of a stovetop blaze in them.

He didn’t want to look away, but Wei Ying was pouting cutely again.

Wait. What was he thinking? Wei Ying’s Aphrodite-esque charisma was rubbing off on him too. Lan Zhan frowned; it should be the other way around!

Still, he nodded in assent, as he pulled his guqin comfortably to his knees.

He stroked out a note, and Wei Ying gave Recorder of Doom a happy trill.

They began.

Unlike in the day, not everyone around them stopped to listen, though it did have a soothing quality that echoed around the amphitheater. The demigods around them stopped and stared, though, and after a stunned silence, they sang along to the songs, making up words.

After Lan Zhan realized that they had played Baby Shark at least three times already, he placed a calming hand on his guqin, chiding it to a stop. The strings, pressured under his palm, obeyed.

But Wei Ying, of course, had to flute away not just Baby Shark, but the Fun Song again, before he let Recorder of Doom stop torturing Lan Zhan’s Beethoven-esque sensibilities and grinned orange. “I’m never gonna let you live that down,” he said.

Lan Zhan’s lips thinned. That didn’t sound feasible. But it wasn’t like Wei Ying was letting him live down anything these days.

“Hey, Wei Ying,” Jiang Cheng grumped, breaking the atmosphere, because of course, that was his job in this family. “We should get to sleep. It’s late.”

“Oh, wait,” Jiang Yanli said, smiling as though she hadn’t just plotted the defeat of their enemies. “You should show him your sword.”

“Oh, right!”

_ Sword? _

Wei Ying whipped around excitedly, his hair—despite being relatively short—hitting Lan Zhan square in the face. “Jie said I should show it off tomorrow in full daylight, but you can get the teaser trailer,” he rambled. “It’s super, super cool, but I don’t really know what to name it yet. Look, look, look!”

He swung himself back around, pulling out of his pocket a tiny needle, like the ones Wen Qing carried in her sleeves. “Watch,” he said. “Most people get this household object or piece of jewelry or something that their weapon can turn into, but I figured a thing out. I got blood magic.” And he cheerfully stabbed himself in the finger.

“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan questioned, weakly. He was too surprised to even yelp his name out.

“Shhh.” The needle disappeared as Wei Ying placed his other finger, the one not bleeding right now, to his lips. “Don’t talk. Just watch.”

Slowly, the blood dripped. Lan Zhan had a feeling that Wei Ying was only giving it time to flow for dramatic effect. Then, seemingly out of nowhere—Lan Zhan believed a “pop!” sound was in order—the twigbranch from earlier materialized in his hands.

“I can carry it with the iron in my blood,” Wei Ying explained.

The sword was...something. It didn’t even have a guard, which, Lan Zhan thought, was a bold design move. Wei Ying unsheathed it slowly, admiring the shine on the blade. “Whooooa,” he sighed. There were words etched into it, and a blood-red fuller. That was an awful lot of thought put into the design of a sword that would doubtless leave its owner with a cut hand.

“Zeus isn’t even  _ your  _ dad,” Jiang Cheng sulked.

“It’s a way of telling him he’s still family,” Jiang Yanli said nicely. “That’s all.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t do the ritualistic thing of rolling his eyes.

Wei Ying flushed, as though he still had an ounce of shame left in him, if he was born with any at all. “Lan Zhan,” he said suddenly. “Look at all these people.”

Lan Zhan followed the wave of his hand, surveying the near-empty amphitheater. Wow. People were tired tonight. “People?” he said.

“Exactly!” Wei Ying giggled at his own infuriating cleverness. “We should go. I have a secret to tell you.”

What.

“Then, that means you two will be walking back to your cabins together,” Jiang Yanli said, apparently picking up what her brother was putting down. “A-Cheng, let’s go back to the Hermes cabin. We’ll move in tomorrow morning.”

“I guess we can’t trip up the pranksters anymore,” Jiang Cheng said, smiling sharply. “You know. Because we won’t have roommates.”

“Have fun, you two!” Jiang Yanli waved as Wei Ying grabbed Lan Zhan by the wrist, his sword dissipated back into his blood, and dashed off, Lan Zhan very reluctantly in tow.

They didn’t run long. Wei Ying’s hair bounced in the darkness ahead of Lan Zhan, the minute chatter of the camp falling away until all he could see was the night sky around them, and the water of the Long Island sound black and blue in the moonlight.

The ground beneath them had turned to sand when Wei Ying released him, flumping himself into the soft beach floor.

“Come sit with me, Lan Zhan,” he said, eyes bulging skyward, patting the spot next to him. “I know you’re probably too proud to lie down, so you can just sit while I talk.”

Well, he was right in that respect.

Lan Zhan settled himself on the spot where his hand had been, neatly crossing his legs and dusting his pants.

“What’s your secret?” he asked, finally.

Wei Ying flumped left, to look at him. The sky cast an odd blue glow on his eyes, shining out of the sea of his face. The waves were his nose, his cheeks, his pout, and oh  _ gods,  _ Lan Zhan was waxing poetic about his unremarkable face.

He flailed an arm, patting up a small puff of sand. “Well,” he said. “I feel like I need to tell you, now that I already talked to Jie about this. By the way, not even Huaisang knows about this, so can you keep a secret? I mean, of course you can, because you never talk, but I should ask anyway.”

So he was confiding in him, something that he couldn’t even tell his best friends in this camp. Lan Zhan nodded. He could get behind this.

Wei Ying laughed without opening his mouth. “Mm.” The darkness made him seem more animated than he already was. It was practically cartoonish. “Good. So, you know I’m adopted, right?”

He waited for Lan Zhan to nod.

“Yeah, exactly,” he said. “So, my siblings and I, we kind of grew up in...you know. A really good household.” He hesitated, as though reconsidering whether or not he should confide in him. “But there were...issues. I’m not gonna tell you what they are, exactly,” he decided. “But long story short, Uncle Jiang adopted me. That’s Jie and Jiang Cheng’s dad. Auntie Yu never liked that, because Uncle Jiang might’ve been in love with my mom. I don’t know.” A shrug, to punctuate that not knowing. “And then...ummmm.” He thought hard, biting his own pout. “So, basically, they were born to what they thought were biological parents,” he said. “But Auntie Yu thought maybe Uncle Jiang cheated with my mom. That’s kind of dumb, because my mom only really liked my dad. But now it’s funny, because that means Auntie Yu was the one who cheated. But Jiang Cheng doesn’t think that’s what actually happened. Actually, Jie said that maybe she was with Zeus while she was still deciding on whether or not to marry Uncle Jiang.” He squirmed uncomfortably, stuttering on his next few words. “So...yeah,” he finished lamely. “Sorry. Can’t tell you more. But that’s just gonna be an awkward letter home, and also.” His words picked up in speed. “I’m just really scared that they’regonnaarguesomemoreandblameme,” he finished in a rush.

He looked away.

Lan Zhan let the story sink in as Wei Ying visibly squirmed in the sand, after having upheaved so many secrets at once.

“You can’t tell anyone!” Wei Ying said over his shoulder, then shrank back to the opposite side facing away from Lan Zhan.

One thought with clarity:  _ Wei Ying confided in me. _

And then another:  _ Wei Ying is tight-lipped about things that hurt him. _

Wei Ying flipped back over, lashes over round eyes. “You really can’t tell anyone,” he said, in a voice that he’d only heard him use on Jiang Cheng.

So of course, how could he refuse him?

“I will not,” Lan Zhan said. That was two more words than “okay.”

Wei Ying relaxed into the sand, satisfied by the addition of another syllable. “That’s great,” he murmured, almost into the sand. It blew bits and particles against Lan Zhan’s knee, but he did not care. “Thanks for listening to me.”

_ Say more syllables,  _ Lan Zhan thought to himself, and he obeyed. “Why would they blame you?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Wei Ying flipped back away from him, hand clapping over his visible hair. “No, you can’t ask me that!” he said. “That’s a secret secret, the kind you don’t tell other people.”

“All right,” Lan Zhan said. “Then...” His brother’s voice came to mind, along with those unusual words that he spoke to his own friends. “How do you feel?” he asked for the first time in his life.

Ah, that did the trick. Wei Ying flipped back over, pawing at his knee. “Kind of sc— Nervous,” he said, evenly. “Like, I wouldn’t know how to fix it.”

Lan Zhan’s brow furrowed. “Why would you need to fix it?”

“I...” Wei Ying did not seem to understand the question. “Of course,” he said. “Because,” he then tried again, and then coughed on a mouthful of sand.

He curled up like a snail, and Lan Zhan was moved to shift to his other side, where he could reach his back and beat it. Finally, Wei Ying uncurled himself. That smile was plastered back across his face.

“You’re a good friend, Lan Zhan,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: Sorry for the late update. Was busy writing Fuck Novella, AKA my other MDZS fic. It’s called 陈情未绝, and if you guys wanna, you can hop on over to my profile to read it :) I am very proud of it. And ye, it’s in English, I was just feeling myself by writing the title in Chinese.
> 
> “Gusu,” Chinese side of MDZS tells me, is the ancient name of modern-day Suzhou. I had to Google what food Suzhou has, and, um. For a bunch of vegans, Gusu really loves their meat dishes, huh. I used the name “water ginseng soup” because Lan Zhan would never live down saying “semen euryales” with a straight face. Or at least, Wei Ying would never let him.
> 
> As usual, lemme know what y’all think in the comments below! Next update will come faster this time around :)]


	7. Trysts in the Woods (Where are the Monsters, Though?)

He really shouldn’t have heard that conversation. He had no right to, not when Wei Ying had worked so hard to hide it from him, while still confiding in him. He should have covered his ears, found a way out of that tree, even if he did have to make things awkward. Awkward was better than inevitably breaking Wei Ying’s trust.

But Grover Underwood had asked for him to come to this part of the woods in particular, and if he moved even a whisker from his position in the shrubs, then the crinkle would have alerted Wei Ying to his presence.

And anyway, why was Wei Ying sneaking off into the woods at weird hours with his family? But still, Lan Zhan felt bad.

When Wei Ying had first come into the clearing, Jiang Cheng was unusually quiet—in other words, the one time he could have put his loud, angry screaming to good use and alerted Lan Zhan to their presence beforehand, he  _ didn’t— _ and Lan Zhan, sitting obediently in the spot Grover had asked him to wait in, heard them coming much too late.

“We don’t have an audience here,” Wei Ying told his brother, undoubtedly dragging him in by the arm. “Unless you want to tell any monsters that come out, but we’ll kill them, so who’re they gonna tell anyway?”

Jiang Cheng made a low growling noise. “I’d like to see them try,” he snapped. “I’ll wipe their sorry asses off the face of this earth.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Wei Ying soothed.

Lan Zhan had been dutifully informed that, though he and his own brother rarely spoke such a way, that it was perfectly normal for older siblings to stand by any tantrums their younger siblings threw. In which case, Jiang Cheng was the ultimate younger sibling.

He continued his belated loudness for quite some time before he and Wei Ying somehow managed to start a relevant conversation. Lan Zhan found this transition fascinating.

“Mom got the letter,” Jiang Cheng said, quietly.

“Oh no,” Wei Ying commented immediately. The cheer drained from his voice immensely, as though preparing him for an onslaught of everything he didn’t want to hear.

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng said. “She said...” His voice tightened. “She said that it was time for us to learn the truth about her relationship with Dad. And Dad’s relationship to your mom.”

“Does she want us to come home?” Wei Ying asked. The way his voice sparked up so brightly wrenched at Lan Zhan’s still-frantic heart; was he homesick? Then, what a strong, pulling homesickness, that he hid under a layer of devil-may-care friendliness.

“No,” Jiang Cheng said, and Lan Zhan deflated. “She said that she would rather do an Iris message, so we should all find an isolated spot and sit down with a drachma. Like, she’d rather see us in person, but she thinks it’s more important that we stay here and train, especially since we have a quest coming up so soon. And she and Dad will call with us at the same time.”

After a time—perhaps the longest stretch of silence Wei Ying had ever breathed—Wei Ying said, with a great deal of thought, “Do you think...my mom...I mean...” Lan Zhan waited patiently for him to finish thinking, as though it were he himself in front of him instead of Jiang Cheng; that was how he realized Jiang Cheng was showing an uncharacteristic amount of it. “Do you think she and your dad really...” A resounding slap.

Lan Zhan spiked as much as the thorns around him as his blood rose in fury; did Jiang Cheng  _ hit  _ Wei Ying?

“You gotta stop doing that,” Jiang Cheng grumped.

...Wei Ying hit himself? So there were some things that Wei Ying did that Lan Zhan had never seen. Somehow, that did not cool his ardor in the slightest.

A snickering sound. Wei Ying continued, “I’m just thinking that since the cat’s out of the bag, your mom and your dad might not want to...be together anymore. Divorced,” he finished. “Get divorced.”

Once more, silence.

“That’s the worst case scenario!” Wei Ying said hurriedly. “But if they just stayed together for us...well, for you, anyway. Auntie Yu never liked me.”

“That’s not your fault and she knows it,” Jiang Cheng said. “The day you came in, she was mad at Dad because she thought you were his kid with your mom, and they’d agreed not to keep secrets between themselves.” An audible intake of breath. “That means that he always knew we were Zeus’s kids.”

“Shit,” Wei Ying breathed. “Hey, hey, Jiang Cheng”—an audible “ow!” from the angry brother—“you think we got a Poseidon cousin somewhere? If it was a baby, you could teach it to swim!” He laughed obnoxiously, and Lan Zhan could  _ hear  _ Jiang Cheng’s eyeroll. “You might drown it, though.”

“I’ll drown  _ you  _ first, you asshole,” Jiang Cheng said.

Lan Zhan waited there, expecting more, but that was all they bothered to say before they lapsed off into less heavy conversation. Everything else was irrelevant sibling-talk. He only liked it for the same reason his brother liked listening to podcasts when they were home—because Wei Ying could speak people to sleep.

Did he just think that?

Oh, that buzz of thoughts in his head was good; it drowned out whatever other secrets Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng had between them.

These past few weeks, he had gone from observing—admiring, maybe, because he was so skilled and  _ loud— _ Wei Ying to being (ohmygoodness) his  _ friend.  _ He had had soup with his family, and he was sure they were about to do it again this week.

Whatever was happening, Wei Ying filled his head, his vocabulary, his songs, his skills on the battlefield. If they went on the quest right now, then that was just fine. He would like to sleep across Wei Ying again, the way they did in Hermes’s cabin.

When Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng had left, leaving Lan Zhan to puzzle it over for another while; by the time Grover Underwood finally came to him, he had fully developed the question on the tip of his tongue, but he dared not to think the words in his mind.

“Thanks for coming, and I’m sorry for being late,” the Lord of the Wild said, pushing his way through the shrubs, as though the thorns on the bramble side didn’t affect him at all.

The blockage of spikes in front of his face cleared, Lan Zhan nodded his head deeply in greeting. For a Lord of the Wild, this kid barely in his twenties seemed jumpy—at the prospect of human interaction, not the thorns. Understandable.

Grover Underwood folded his goat legs comfortably underneath himself, shaking out his curly hair; it bounced around his horns before it found a satisfying position. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you all the way out here,” he began. “That’s mostly because Lan Huan and I have been taking, um...secret music lessons here. And we were talking, and he thought I should tell you about this. And you know all his secrets anyway, and you won’t tell anyone about it.”

Lan Zhan nodded. Lan Huan had never told him about his rendezvous in the woods, where he could safely develop a new music technique-or-something-or-other he was working on, until today. But honestly, who cared?

“I’m trying to figure out a way to turn charmspeak into music,” his brother had explained.

Lan Zhan had said, “Okay.”

Grover continued, “I’m not sure, this is all hearsay, but I think at least  _ someone  _ going on the quest should know about it. I know Rachel basically named you and Wei Ying first, but Wei Ying seems to have his own stuff to deal with right now?”

_ Just a little,  _ Lan Zhan thought dryly, thinking of the conversation he had just eavesdropped on. Shit, that was uncomfortable. Shit, he was really thinking in curse words now. Wei  _ Ying. _

He was swimming in his head.

He nodded in acknowledgement of Grover’s words. Grover nodded back.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen to Persephone—” Grover stopped abruptly mid-sentence. “Bahhhh,” he bleated nervously, then flicked his fingers over a flyaway curl in a motion that looked like Wei Ying flicking his nose when he was...ah, sheepish. “This is stressful,” he said, grinning apologetically at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan was filled with the sudden urge to pull a Lan Huan and wrap this jittery Lord of the Wild in his arms, and possibly swaddle him in the protection of the Golden Fleece, too.

“That’s all right,” Lan Zhan said.

“Well, my girlfriend Juniper and a lot of other dryads are starting to feel a kind of shift in the woods,” Grover said. “We don’t know what’s going on. It’s like a bowstring when you’re drawing it back, you know? It hasn’t shot yet, but you know it’s going to rebound when you finally let go. Hard. Or like bubblegum when you chew it, and you’re still blowing it, but you know it’s thinning out and it’s gonna burst at any point now. Like that.”

Lan Zhan did understand. He nodded again.

“But she also said”—he sank his voice an octave lower—“that it feels like it’s waiting for something. All those dryads are following a gut feeling, but they’re rarely wrong when it comes to stuff like this. We wild folk know what we feel.” He puffed out his chest a second. “So, they think the danger coming to Persephone, ending spring, is going to happen depending on your actions. Specifically you and the children of the Big Three. That’s why Lan Huan has been developing this technique. You’ll need all the new ways of fighting that you can in the upcoming quest. You and Wei Ying seem close, so can you tell him? And then share it with his siblings too.”

“I will,” Lan Zhan said. This was...a lot to think about.

“Oh, and can you also tell Lan Huan to come by whenever? We had a discussion the other day too, and I wanna follow up on that whenever he’s free.”

Lan Zhan didn’t really need to ponder about his brother wandering the woods, singing and making friends with woodland creatures like a Disney princess. “Yes,” he said.

Grover grinned at the thought of Lan Huan visiting, his features lighting up. “Thanks,” he bleated.

“Of course,” Lan Zhan said, and excused himself—

But the moment he turned away, his mind wasn’t set on the quest anymore. It had settled right back onto the subject that had been bothering him, eating at him while he was waiting. “One more thing,” he said, turning back and catching the Lord of the Wild.

Grover turned around, his mouth full of brambles. He chewed hurriedly and gulped down. “Yes?” he asked, not a trace of embarrassment to be found.

“You and Juniper,” he asked. Oh, the awkwardness was  _ stifling.  _ “How did you...feel, before you got together?”

Juniper, like juniper berries, the color Grover was now turning. “Beeeehhhhhhhh,” he bleated, long and flustered. “Oh, I dunno...there was a lot of mutual pining, and she got really jealous of me with other girls. And I kind of didn’t know how to talk to her, but I thought about her. A  _ lot,”  _ he practically gurgled. “Even though I was questing. Oh, that’s a weird question to ask me.”

Lan Zhan’s ears must also be juniper berry-red too, but Grover was on a roll, so who was he to stop him from delivering him an answer?

“It was like we were both sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for something to happen,” Grover explained in a rush, flushed from brow to neck. “But it didn’t happen. Unless we actually did something, like confess or something. I had a crush on a blueberry bush once, but then I confessed, and got rejected pretty badly, so I wasn’t looking forward to that again, but then it worked out.” He slammed the brakes, realizing something the same time Lan Zhan puzzled that something out. “Hey,” he said, “that sounds a lot like what’s happening with the quest! Oh, but that’s probably just some really poetic coincidence.” He waved his hand, grabbed another handful of brambles, and stuffed it into his mouth, thinking hard as he chewed and swallowed in small increments. It was like watching someone eat popcorn.

“Is it a crush?” Lan Zhan asked.

Grover was too busy listening to the sounds of his own chewing sounds, apparently. He gulped it down, and came back up for air. “What?”

“Was it a crush?” Lan Zhan asked.

The Lord of the Wild nodded, curls bouncing, eyes sparkling. “Yeah,” he said. “She’s a pretty great girlfriend.”

Well. That said it all.

“Thank you,” Lan Zhan said, dipping his head. And then he excused himself. For real, this time.

—

He sought out Wei Ying, because he had important news to tell him. But for some reason, by the time he did, Wei Ying was sitting despondently between his siblings. Jiang Cheng was stone-faced. Jiang Yanli soothed them both, but it was like pouring water over a rock hoping to soften it. It did nothing, and they only leaned into her touch.

Lan Zhan should have probably approached them—he and Wei Ying were friends, after all—but the look on Jiang Cheng’s face suggested that he’d best not. And anyway, Lan Zhan was still feeling terrible about accidentally eavesdropping on them and finding out what was probably the reason the trio was in such a state now.

He decided to leave them alone for the rest of the week, by the second day it was Wei Ying who approached him—slowly, hesitantly, tiredly, but still with a bright smile plastered across his face.

“Hey, Lan Zhan,” he said.

Lan Zhan’s heart bloomed and blossomed at the sound of his own name, but he didn’t let it show, of course. Wei Ying still seemed to pick up on it.

“Can we play music today?” Wei Ying showed him Recorder of Doom. “Just the two of us, in a random part of camp or something. Maybe like the edge of the woods?”

Perhaps an appropriate response would have been “how are you feeling?” but Wei Ying wasn’t offering. Lan Zhan merely nodded in assent. “Mn.”

Wei Ying’s smile widened, grew a little more genuine. “Okay,” he said through an airy breath, and closed slender fingers over Lan Zhan’s wrist.

Lan Zhan was going to tell him. But he was scared of the change.

They found a spot indeed at the edge of the woods, just where the monsters wouldn’t bother them but only the dryads could hear. Lan Zhan stretched his guqin over his lap, running a finger up and down the length of one of its strings, while Wei Ying settled himself in the grass as well, legs popped at angles bent around the knee, making himself comfortable against a tree.

Lan Zhan glanced at Wei Ying; Wei Ying smiled softly at him. It was familiar. It felt like the pines and the mist.

He played a note. Then another. And another. The songs they played were like psalms they offered up to their godly parents; asking them for luck in their quests, for a reprieve from Wei Ying’s angry adoptive parents. A good fate for Wei Ying, Lan Zhan thought, something that was different from what usually happened to a child of Hades.

He still was not thinking the words he really wanted to say to Wei Ying, so he put it into his song instead. Wei Ying followed, before parting off into another verse; Lan Zhan decided to follow him in those piped sounds, matching his melody with the guqin’s melody.

_ Wangji,  _ he distracted himself with that thought.  _ Your name will be Wangji,  _ he thought at his guqin. Its sound was unearthly, and made him forget his troubles momentarily.

By the end of the song, he had detached himself enough from the present. So now was the time; strike the iron while it’s hot. “Wei Ying,” he said.

Wei Ying paused, recorder halfway to his lips. “Lan Zhan.” He smiled dreamily at him, as though he too were floating away with the sound they had created.

“I like you.”

Strike the iron while it’s hot? Not sure about striking, or anything about iron, but hot, yes. Lan Zhan was burning in the ears and mouth and nose, and his face too. All the blood was filling up his head as he slammed back to earth.

Wei Ying did not move.

“What?” he said, weakly. Was he really going to make Lan Zhan say it again? He’d obviously heard it the first time.

Lan Zhan thinned his lips, biting them for good measure. He didn’t have to say it. He watched Wei Ying’s face change.

Finally, his face blossomed and bloomed, with a look that wasn’t quite a smile, but something that didn’t speak of rejection, either.

“Oh,” he said, on a breath through his nose and his mouth. “Lan Zhan.” Lan Zhan flinched, delicate, at the sound of his own name; Wei Ying struck him while he was still hot with confession. Wei Ying continued, “I like  _ you.” _

Was he still dreaming?

Lan Zhan was in a trance; Wei Ying moved as though he were in once, putting his Recorder of Doom down and nearing him, fingers scratching Lan Zhan’s chin as he grasped it in his hand. And strangely, that was all right by him.

“Is this okay?” Wei Ying asked. “Is this really okay?”

He came closer. His hair curled slightly over his forehead. He’d been growing it out; it was starting to crawl over his ears. His eyebrows were fine. His lips were smooth. His lips—

Wei Ying kissed him for the first time.

Lan Zhan didn’t know anything about kissing, or confessing, or how to really turn liking someone into a playground, but he knew about getting something if he wanted it, even if he had to ask politely first. And since Wei Ying was offering so generously, he followed that generosity, to return him in full.

Eventually, the kissing had to stop, but one look at Lan Zhan’s face must have told Wei Ying everything he needed to know. He leaned back in, and there was less weird, awkward tooth gnashing and lip brushing this time, though it wasn’t much better. That was all right. Lan Zhan liked it.

The second time they pulled away, Wei Ying was smiling awkwardly at him, and he hummed a few awkward notes in his throat as though looking for some way to express himself.

It was the notes of the song they had just played. Lan Zhan fingered Wangji a moment. The corresponding note rang out, and Wei Ying laughed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“How was that?” Wei Ying asked, bashfully.

It was at that moment that the first snow began to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: This fic was written by an older sibling. Me. I’m older sibling.
> 
> Also, I thought and thought about this, but I’ve made the decision for WangXian to happen early. It’s still going to be a slowburn. Just...an unconventional slowburn.]


	8. Whatever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wei Ying has a family reunion, and you are all invited.

Lan Zhan still hadn’t told Wei Ying what Grover Underwood had told him, but he understood now; Aphrodite, his own mother, had a hand in this quest. She had tried to arm him with passion and love in preparation for it, and now he was ready. Well...Lan Zhan didn’t want to think of it as love yet. He was much too prudent for that. Love was that constant presence at his side, that it was a given his uncle and brother would be with him until they went to Elysium together. But he did like Wei Ying enough to kiss him, and enough to hold his hand as they leaned back against a tree, watching the snowfall in silence. No quest talk—not yet. He was still buzzing with excitement over something else, and excitement over the quest could wait.

Was there a certain kind of power he and Wei Ying could wield together that would make them more powerful on the quest? Wei Ying could practically charmspeak, after all; who knew? He was so multitalented. But as Lan Zhan looked at him, he was able to separate the pragmatism of their relationship (their relationship!) from his genuine feelings. Maybe Aphrodite had pushed Wei Ying his way, but he did like Wei Ying. He thought about him all the time. His mother could invade his dreams, but she couldn’t invade his mind.

Wei Ying was the one who had intertwined their hands. He was a natural at this too. From what Lan Zhan understood, most people their age around camp were clumsy—didn’t know how to kiss, were still learning to hug. Or they went the other way around, and went way too hard on what Wei Ying laughed and called PDA. Somehow, Lan Zhan knew it was short for “public displays of affection.”

Wei Ying’s hand was cool, but it warmed in Lan Zhan’s hand, and it was only lightly calloused from combat training.

“Hey, Lan Zhan.”

“Hm?”

Wei Ying relaxed, leaning against Lan Zhan and resting his head on his shoulder, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Lan Zhan panicked. It must have been growing cooler with each drop of snow that flaked onto the ground, but he didn’t feel it at all. Should he reciprocate somehow? What was the perfect way to return such a perfect display of affection? How to show Wei Ying that he liked him as much as he did?

He thought about something Lan Huan would sometimes do when they were children, before one day they decided that they were too old for that; after much deliberation, he let his head fall atop Wei Ying’s.

For the first time, they well and truly took a break from training for the quest.

—

Lan Zhan woke up to Wei Ying giving his arm gentle, vigorous squeezes, patting his cheeks and bumping their noses together. “Hey, Lan Zhan,” he said. “We gotta go train some more now, okay? The others are probably gonna be panicking by the time we get back, ’cause we’re gonna have to start the quest. For real, this time.”

It was comfortable, it was overwhelming. It was warm, it was cool. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, softly.

Wei Ying tilted his head, a smile playing at his mouth. “Mm? What’s up, Lan Zhan?”

But Lan Zhan had not said his name with anything in mind; he just liked saying it. It felt physical, it felt mental. He could taste it, he could feel it—on the figurines of his tongue, in the bones of his head.

What did being with Wei Ying entail? Being able to be close to him—no,  _ allowing  _ himself to be close to him. Being able to look, unabashed, at Wei Ying as he laughed at Lan Zhan for not following up on the beginning of his own words, and keep looking.

“You’re a strange one,” Wei Ying teased. Lan Zhan was indeed feeling the snow now, but his ears didn’t. He just leaned forward and brushed his lips over Wei Ying’s again. Wei Ying made a familiar sound: A light, breathy hum that came from the part of him where music came from singers. “We should go now,” he said. “The others are gonna wonder where we are.”

Lan Zhan nodded. Smiled. “好，” he said, to Wei Ying’s delighted squeals of laughter.

—

It seemed that everyone in camp was waiting for them by the time they got there. All eyes turned to them, all heads turned. Chiron trotted forward, his hooves clopping muffled sounds against the grass; it was the only sound anyone could hear.

“A-Zhan!” Lan Huan called. Their siblings rushed forth, but if they and the entire camp were staring at them before, they were now staring at their intertwined hands.

Lan Zhan never knew Jiang Cheng’s eyes could get that big, and that was saying something.

Even Chiron was caught off-guard, gawking at their hands with his tail flicking just a millisecond too long, before he remembered himself and jerked his head back up. So there were some things that could surprise centuries-old beings after all; a rare treat.  _ “When the frost comes at noon,”  _ he recited, “ _ then will the sons of darkness and beauty begin their tune.” _ As one, the camp scoured their musical instruments: Recorder of Doom in Wei Ying’s free hand, the one that wasn’t holding Lan Zhan’s, and Wangji strapped in its case to Lan Zhan’s back.

“I knew they were extra, but I didn’t know they’d start our quest with a love song,” Nico whispered to Will. Will shushed him.

Clarisse La Rue of all people leaned over to Valentina Diaz and muttered, “They finally get together and no one is surprised.”

Valentina giggled and stared at Lan Zhan; he realized that his half-sister was proud of him. Well. Capture the Flag didn’t do it, but starting a quest by dating a boy did. Aphrodite priorities. Then he reminded himself,  _ Passion. Not just love. _

For a moment, they all stared at each other, drinking the tea of this newfound relationship and admiring the snow, as if to say,  _ What now?  _ So they took in the scenery.

At that moment, the hush fell over the snow again—not the sort that heralded those wintry upstate mornings when Lan Zhan woke up before the sun and looked out the window to see the pines all blanketed in white. It was the kind that told them,  _ Hades is here. _

Wei Ying was the only person who could suck in an audible breath.

In fact...no one was breathing. Everyone had frozen. Chiron’s tail was still in the air, each stray hair immobile, and Will Solace was not blinking. Alarmed, Lan Zhan gave the hand in his a squeeze, looking frantically at Wei Ying. Wei Ying looked back, also checking on him, then swiveling his head to check on his siblings.

“Dad,” Nico groaned, his own hand trapped in Will’s frozen one, but he himself was leaping and wriggling, trying to free himself.

Jiang Yanli put a comforting hand on Jiang Cheng as he whipped his head around—bringing his neck and shoulders along for the ride—looking for Hades.

Lan Zhan, satisfied that Wei Ying was still with him, looked at Lan Huan, who was frozen very still, eyes fixed on his little brother’s hand intertwined with his new boyfriend’s. Oh gods. He was frozen too, and the only thing he could probably see now was Lan Zhan’s love life—

Lan Huan’s eye twitched imperceptibly, which is to say Lan Zhan saw it as one big spasm, and he was hit with the revelation that his brother was  _ voluntarily focused on his very visible love life.  _ Lan Huan, in all of Lan Zhan’s life, had never been the kind of sibling who embarrassed his little brother—which is to say, they were the only siblings who never did—but somehow, without him even intentionally doing so, he made Lan Zhan want to freeze with everyone else and not be aware of anything.

“Ge,” he said, calling attention to his face and not his affectionate hands. Lan Huan responded, making eye contact, and Lan Zhan saw that familiar uncomfortable spark that had been in Valentina Diaz’s a moment ago.

Over the crispy white frost that now patterned the spring grass, a shadow fell. Lan Zhan looked up.

A pale man—pale as Nico—descended, night-black hair and robes swirling around him. He chose to enter as dramatically as possible—with his arms spread wide at either side of him, making great use of the wind currents, all the better to billow his robes with. He had gaunt, hollow eyes as he came, his shadow shrinking and shrinking as he neared the ground; he blew up a puff of frost as he alighted like a meteor, but did not actually touch it; instead, he hovered mere inches off of it, robes still swirling around him like a night circus tent.

No one had reacted to his arrival, aside from the questers who had been unaffected. Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli lowered their arms from where they had been defensively raised in front of their faces, while Nico just looked bored.

Wei Ying had not inherited many physical traits from his godly father, Hades. He had a cute button nose and full cheeks, while Hades looked gaunt and thin, his nose elongated to a needle point. Perhaps Wei Ying had his body; Hades loomed over them, like he had been stretched long into the sky; likewise, Wei Ying was a lanky teenager still growing into his bones. Lan Zhan made a note to give him extra lotus soup at their next gathering, even if he had to force-feed him. Or...get Jiang Yanli to force-feed him.

The biggest, cheesiest difference—that would make Lan Zhan’s Aphrodite siblings titter if he ever said it out loud—was the way Wei Ying held the trace of a smile in his face even now, as he greeted his father, who looked like he had just had a long day overseeing more funerals than usual.

“Dad?” Wei Ying tried. His smile was lopsided, as though he were staring at something that mystified him greatly, but he still tried to keep a positive countenance.

Hades’s image flickered; so he was not really here! He could be here in a moment if he wanted, though; Lan Zhan knew gods could choose when to physically appear. Suppose he was projecting his image forward, somehow, while still sitting on his throne. It was endlessly fascinating: Although Lan Zhan took many things without question, never asking a mystery of the world “why?” there was one thing he shared in common with Wei Ying, his new boyfriend—he was curious as to  _ how  _ a god functioned, and if it wasn’t something physical and within human comprehension like the mechanical works inside a clock, then there must be some other way to understand, anyway. It was a matter of translating it into a language that  _ could  _ fit in the confines of the human mind. Wei Ying was better at that than he was. He had never seen someone use blood magic to wield their weapon.

Hades tilted his head at his son, as though studying him, unsure how to address him. Lan Zhan wondered if the god even knew how to speak Chinese; he suspected, deeply and without any doubt in his heart, that Wei Ying’s mother was the one who had named him. He could not see the lord of the dead naming his infant “infant”; nor could he see a mother of Wei Ying of all people allowing anyone other than the one who had gone through the labor of birthing him to name the fruit of it.

Finally, Hades said, in the cadence of a man (god) who had learned to speak a foreign language with too much perfection, “Wei Ying.”

“Hades!” Wei Ying said, grinning sunnily as he greeted his father like he  _ wasn’t  _ the god of the dead on high. “Nice to meet you, Dad. You’re a few years late, though.”

_ Just a few,  _ Lan Zhan said. He knew it was impolite to glower, but since no one could separate his glowers from his usual face other than his family and his boyfriend anyway, he did so heartily.

And besides. Hades was staring at his sunshine-bright son, so deeply tanned and happy compared to his Elderly Nico aesthetic, as though seeing someone else. Did Hades even see his own son as his own person? Lan Zhan wondered. He hoped he did. Otherwise, he was missing out on a good person who deserved a family that held Wei Ying in as much regard as he did them.

The lord of the dead finally seemed to snap out of it—or, really, ease out of it; his face gave only a twitch—and said, eyes never migrating anywhere outside of his own son’s face, “Persephone has gone missing.”

“Stepmom’s in trouble?” Wei Ying chewed his lip cutely in thought, like a puppy, though Lan Zhan knew he would hate that simile. Then, Wei Ying smiled again. “Well, we already knew that. How do we rescue her?”

Hades took a good, long, hard look at Wei Ying, as though realizing something; what it was, Lan Zhan could not tell.

“Come to my domain first,” Hades said, finally. “There’s something here that will aid you in your quest. But before you do,” and his eyes were narrowing in disgust, so it was no surprise when he said, “you’ll need to pay a visit to Demeter.”

Lan Zhan could  _ see  _ Wei Ying ticking off his fingers in his mind. “So, stepaunt? Where do we find her?  _ WAIT.”  _ Wei Ying raised a frantic hand as his father opened his mouth; Hades, surprised, screeched to a halt that lurched his head forward and snapped his jaw shut. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Gimme a sec, gimme a secccc.” He flailed his hand as everyone stared at him incredulously, even the unfrozen people. “Is she gonna be somewhere plant-based?”

“WOW,” Jiang Cheng said.  _ LET HIM SPEAK,  _ Lan Zhan thundered back, before he sent him a lightning-sharp look.

“I mean,” said Wei Ying thoughtfully, tapping his foot in the soft crunch of snow ice. “During Capture the Flag last week, you finally gave me this whatever-kind-of-tree sword, which I still haven’t named. Lan Zhan?”

Wei Ying held out his arm, the request direct but somewhat shy.  _ I’ve never let someone draw my blood before,  _ that arm seemed to say, wiggling its fingers and forearm in anticipation until Lan Zhan plucked out Bichen from the qiankun bag—a gift from his uncle, actually, that conveniently shrank his weapon, held his wallet when he needed it, his handkerchief to stay neat and polish Wangji, and even looped onto his waist like it couldn’t bear to be parted—and held Wei Ying’s wrist; Wei Ying stilled, and Lan Zhan gently turned his palm over and nicked the soft slope of the pad of his finger, ever so slightly, with the very tip of Bichen. Blood welled up in a globule geyser, so close and flat to the skin of Wei Ying’s finger.

Wei Ying smiled fondly at the gesture, as though Lan Zhan had passed a secret test. “Thank you,” he said, softly.

Lan Zhan looked him in his bright eyes, bright like the near-bursting globe of blood, and gave him an equally soft nod. Wei Ying’s throat burbled up another airy sound, that waved into the air between them.

Wei Ying’s attention flickered back to his blood, his eyelashes fluttering with snowflake dew, and his blood visually hissed; it gathered into Stygian steel-black smoke that unfurled from the tip of his finger, dancing into formation until it shaped into the tree branch sword.

Wei Ying turned to his father. “This sword,” he said, “it looks exactly like that branch I fell off of back at home, on the fig tree.” His eyelashes fluttered around the smile in his eyes. “I  _ knew  _ you were watching over me back then, Dad!”

Hades turned his head a little towards Jiang Yanli, as though she could save him from his embarrassment, but Jiang Yanli was nodding enthusiastically along, sharing in that memory.

“But besides that,” Wei Ying continued, “the first fig tree was a gift Demeter gave to Phytalos, the Attican citizen who housed her when she was looking for Persephone the first time around, when you kidnapped her.” He wagged his finger, nonjudgmental, but Hades was teased all the same.

_ How unfilial,  _ Lan Zhan could imagine his uncle saying. But...what Wei Ying was saying...was completely true.

Hades had the shame to turn lightly pink. “I listen to her,” he said sullenly.

“Yeah, I know you do, Dad,” Wei Ying soothed. “So, you want me to go home and climb up that fig tree in our yard, yeah? Demeter’s gonna meet me there.”

The color slowly fell away from Hades’s face, so he was back to looking like bleached looseleaf paper. If the saying goes, “color me impressed,” then that color was white. “That’s correct,” he said, nodding. “As expected. Your mother was this clever too.”

Now  _ that  _ changed the atmosphere as quickly as the sudden snow. The smile slipped from Wei Ying’s mouth, replaced with an O of a maddening,  _ desperate  _ hunger to know more. Lan Zhan could not look away; he had never seen Wei Ying like this. The tree branch stilled in his hands, which meant his ADHD had no sway right now, and he was focusing on only one thing. “My mom?” he said. His voice came out high, tinged with a sense of  _ respect,  _ like he was trying to offer some in exchange for information. “What was she like? Did she look like me?”

_ Did she look like me?  _ Lan Zhan echoed in his mind. Did no one tell Wei Ying  _ anything  _ about his mother? Surely, all children are told how much they resemble their parents, and how? Even his uncle had made a passing remark once about how Lan Zhan’s face moved about as much as his father’s. Speaking of, he exchanged a look with Lan Huan. His brother gave him a hopeless shrug.

Hades floated lower to the ground, but came no further. “You look like her,” he said, delicately. It was the nicest thing he had said during this entire visit, because Wei Ying—though clearly receiving an answer to a question that would never be fully sated—drank it in. “She was clever and wild, like you. She was perceptive about people.”

Lan Zhan felt his face squirm—so, twitch minutely—as he slowly realized he really shouldn’t be listening to such a personal conversation, and neither should anyone else here, even the Jiangs. Hades seemed to be conscious of the same; he fell silent, then said, gruffly, “We can talk more when you come down. And your brother”—a look at Nico, because, ah,  _ that  _ brother—“should lead you down afterwards. I will await you. Don’t be late.” That last statement was aimed at Nico, who twisted his lips and rolled his eyes.

“I’ve done it tons of times,” Nico said.

“Don’t worry, Nico,” Wei Ying said, before Hades could make another sharp remark. But instead of being loud and cheerful, Wei Ying seemed to still be soft at the edges, mind still on his nameless, faceless mother; Lan Zhan realized that he had only cut in to calm both his brother and his father. “I trust you!”

Nico flashed him a grateful look, which is to say the barest hint of a smile lit up his face, like Will Solace had just run past in a millisecond.

“Before you go,” Hades said, “you should name that sword. ‘Tree branch’ is rather bare.” He nodded at the deadly twig in Wei Ying’s hands.

Wei Ying pursed his lips in thought. “I’ve really been thinking about it for a long time,” he said through fish lips. “I don’t know. I was thinking Twigbranch or Slayer of Doom—you know, because I have Recorder of Doom, and it needs a sibling—or Fig Tree or Dignity or Justice or something…”

Whatever Lan Zhan was feeling could not compare to the increasingly horrified looks on Wei Ying’s brothers’ and Hades’s faces.

Wei Ying mumbled to himself in thought, words clipping by too fast to understand, before he fell silent for a walloping three seconds. Finally, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Hades echoed.

“I mean,” Wei Ying shrugged, “whatever.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, appalled, but Hades just groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“‘Whatever’ it is, then,” the god said, and snapped his fingers. “It is done.”

And lo and behold, the word ‘whatever’ carved itself, as though by an invisible hand, into the sheath of the tree branch.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Wei Ying waved his hand frantically. “Dad, don’t go! One more thing!”

Hades, midway through fading away, stopped, and materialized back into solidity. “What?” he sighed.

_ Finally,  _ Lan Zhan thought,  _ he thought of a more reverent name. _

“I actually think it’d look better in Chinese, no offense,” Wei Ying said, with a sheepish grin. “It looks more like water if you do it in traditional script. How about ‘Suibian’?”

_ Excuse me? _

Hades snapped his fingers again. The words waved like water, the wood rippling, and their lines rearranged themselves to form scrolling script:  _ 随便。 _

“Thanks, Dad!” Wei Ying said, as though he had just been offered a toy in his Happy Meal, as Hades disappeared in a quick escape.

The snow began drifting again, and the camp unfroze.

—

Chiron was the first to notice the sudden unsheathed swords in Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s hands, and the dab of blood that tipped Bichen.

Nico was the one to explain as he dragged Will Solace behind him, not letting go of his hand despite his earlier complaints: “Hades came by,” he told Chiron. “We’re supposed to go meet Demeter first for a clue or something in Queens, and then go straight to Hades. By the way, Wei Ying’s sword is named ‘Whatever’ now.”

Chiron’s eyebrows launched themselves like twin rockets. “Whatever?”

“Well,” Wei Ying said with a straight face, “it’s Suibian in Chinese, but Whatever works too.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said.

“Hm?” His boyfriend turned, all ears. “What’s up, Lan Zhan?”

How to convey to your boyfriend that you were absolutely appalled with his naming sense? A flashback to his uncle came to him: Lan Zhan, sitting on a stool in the living room in their Long Island home, Lan Huan already reciting the multiplication tables in another corner. Lan Zhan was three. “Swords have spirits, and are sentient in their own way,” his uncle told him. “By absolutely no means do you disrespect any weapon. So when you choose a name for your future weapons, make sure you name them with as much thought and care as you would your future child.” His uncle turned and turned the Buddhist prayer beads between his fingers. “Now we’ll recite the entire opening of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms again.”

“Swords have spirits,” Lan Zhan said.

Wei Ying tilted his head adorably, but Lan Zhan didn’t really want to melt before this matter had been settled. “Yeah,” he said, “but Suibian isn’t a bad name, when you think about it. Besides, I’d decided on so many other names, but this is the one that stuck.” He used his spare hand, the one not holding Lan Zhan’s, to wiggle Suibian, the flowing script blaring mockingly at him.

Lan Zhan gave up, and Wei Ying turned his attention elsewhere, jabbing at his brothers as they picked up Wen Ning and Wen Qing. For the first time, all questers were gathered.

Chiron studied them all, as though trying to think of anything else that could help them, though there was nothing else to know or take. Lan Zhan could simply go as he was, and he knew Lan Huan and Wei Ying could too.

“Seriously?” Jiang Cheng was whispering to Wei Ying.

“He told me my mom was creative, pretty much,” Wei Ying said. And though he was latched onto Lan Zhan, he shared a look with Jiang Cheng—eliciting, for the first time, one of sympathy from the angry brother—that was so beyond Lan Zhan’s understanding, he could feel the stirrings of...

Jealousy? Lan Zhan pursed his lips, as though trying to physically force that gushing wave in his chest down. He did not know this feeling very well, but he could identify it anyway.  _ Wei Ying is your boyfriend,  _ he reminded himself,  _ but he has a family too. _

It was not as though he and Lan Huan did not have their own unspoken language. Still, he held Wei Ying’s hand a little tighter, as though he would flutter away. They were a new couple; they had all the time in the world to get to know each other better, even the secrets.

The brothers gossipped in murmurs some more, before Lan Huan relayed the message to Wen Ning and Wen Qing: “Hades came to us, and told us we have to go to Wei Ying’s home in Queens to seek out Demeter first.”

Wen Qing raised an eyebrow, while Wen Ning said, crestfallen, “I knew we shouldn’t have stayed in the Big House when it started snowing...”

Wen Qing shot him a look—Lan Zhan wondered what that was all about—before she returned to the matter at hand. “So we’ll set out tomorrow,” she said.

“Get some rest tonight,” Chiron said. “You have all been practicing very hard these past weeks; you are as ready as you can be. Get some sleep, and I will meet you here at the Big House tomorrow morning to give you your ambrosia. You will need all of it.”

They were dismissed, the still air somehow sparking with electricity. It was a sense of hushed excitement, one that only Wei Ying vocalized as he tugged on Lan Zhan’s hand. “Lan Zhan,” he said.

Lan Zhan turned. “What is it?”

The smile on Wei Ying’s face was pasted now, too fake, but the love in them was real. The  _ love.  _ Lan Zhan tried not to think of that word, scrubbing it from his mind. “Can you meet me...tonight?” Wei Ying asked. As with when he had requested his help summoning Suibian, he seemed shy, as though he had no right to request anything. That was stupid. He deserved anything Lan Zhan could offer. And besides; he  _ wanted _ to see him tonight. “I’m gonna be with my siblings right now, but can you...maybe...I mean...”

Lan Zhan waited patiently.

Wei Ying pasted that smile on his face, his tone teasing. “Can you come sleep over at my cabin tonight?” he asked. “I know you’d want to be with your siblings on this last night!” he said quickly. “I just figured...I’d like to have you there.”

Where to start, between the jolt and the blankness? A flash of scorching heat went through Lan Zhan’s stomach at the thought, but he also felt that there was more Wei Ying had to say. Wei Ying didn’t continue, though; that was that.

Lan Zhan nodded. “I will meet you there,” he promised, making a note already to tell Lan Huan, and to do it without any of his half-siblings noticing and oohh-ing and ahh-ing as he left for the night.

Wei Ying made a puff of noise, kissed his cheek, and ran off to join his siblings, flinging himself between them and his arms around their shoulders.

Lan Zhan watched him go, that sour taste of envy reappearing on his tongue. But, he reminded himself, he could have him the rest of the night. He could not wait.

—

Lan Huan watched him run his hands up and down the length of Bichen, then strum Wangji in a number of songs, not one of them the one he had composed with Wei Ying; it felt too personal, like only the two of them could not just play, but hear it.

“You’ll be staying with Wei Ying tonight?” he said, voice pitched low so their siblings could not hear. Thankfully, not a lot of them were in the cabin at the moment; they had gone out to a conveniently-placed tree, under which the snow could not touch them, but the cold air would, they claimed, dry their nail polish faster.

“Yes,” said Lan Zhan.

A pause.

“You know,” said Lan Huan, and Lan Zhan, too late, opened his mouth to tell him to  _ cease,  _ “even if it’s between two boys, you should use protection—”

“We won’t,” Lan Zhan forced out.

Lan Huan fell silent, but Lan Zhan was  _ burning  _ with the thought. Of course he knew what people did when they were in relationships, and he now understood what it means in those films when two adults sleep shirtless in the same bed; he knew what happens off-screen. But that was years and years away into the lives of grown-ups, and for now, he just wanted to feel Wei Ying’s cool arms wrapped around him.

He appreciated his brother’s warning, because their uncle would never give them the talk, but he would rather not think about that.

Night fell. He had played a whole soundtrack by then. He wrapped Wangji carefully into its case, then thought better of it, and put it in his qiankun bag along with money, some leftover ambrosia, water, a light coat, and Bichen. And a sleeping bag, of course, assuming they would have time to sleep on this trip. The first day did not sound that bad; they were only going to Queens tomorrow, after all.

He tapped the post of Lan Huan’s bed as he left, until he could approach the Hades cabin.

In the night, it was barely there. He felt that he should have been feeling in the dark for it, but as he approached, he could make out the green glow of the Greek fire torches from within. He ascended the steps, and rapped on the door with his knuckles.

The door opened. Wei Ying smiled sleepily but excitedly at him, already changed into sleepwear. “Lan Zhan,” he breathed, grabbing his hand and pulling him in after him, shutting the door behind them. Lan Zhan scanned the room, but Nico did not seem to be hiding in any dark corners, waiting to emerge with a comment about third-wheeling. Perhaps he was with Will Solace tonight, then.

“Thank you for coming,” Wei Ying whispered, though there was no one to disturb. “Do you want water or something? Before going to bed, I mean.”

“I’m all right,” Lan Zhan said.

“Okay!” Wei Ying breathed. “Um, here. Let me get that.” He tapped the qiankun bag, and Lan Zhan surrendered it, watching Wei Ying tuck it under his bed, alongside his own packed bag. “I think it might be a good idea to bring a coat,” he said, “since it’s gonna get colder soon. Did you pack one?”

“Yes.”

“Bichen?”

“Yes.”

“Your guqin?”

“Yes.”

“Sleeping bag?”

“Yes.”

“Food? Water? Ambrosia?”

“Yes.”

Wei Ying rubbed his hand through Lan Zhan’s hair in a petting motion. “好乖，” he chirruped.

Lan Zhan’s chest warmed at the feeling, and without meaning to, he leaned into the touch.

Wei Ying laughed, leaping backwards into his bed and shifting and lifting the covers until most of his mattress was empty. “You’ve already showered and brushed your teeth?” he asked.

Lan Zhan nodded.

“Then come to bed!” Wei Ying patted the considerable space left for Lan Zhan, and he needed no second telling.

He did not think curling up beneath a threatening, sickly green flame would be cozy, but the bed was soft, and Wei Ying immediately covered them both up, indeed wrapping his cool arms around him and burrowing his cheek into the pillow.

“I’m really happy you’re here,” Wei Ying said, earnestly. “Really. Thank you.”

“It was no trouble,” Lan Zhan responded. Wei Ying’s eyes, up close, were an ashen hue of gray. He admired his own self for not going mad then and there, because his heart was fit to explode out of his chest, and Wei Ying had the kindness of heart to not say anything about it.

“Hey, Lan Zhan.”

“Hm?”

“I gotta say...my family, when we get to my home….” The hues flickered, disappearing as the eyelashes covered them, then reappeared. Wei Ying pressed a little closer, and Lan Zhan could not complain. “They might not be...the most polite. They might break Asian code, and might start some drama in front of you, or say something really unpleasant. And that’s not on you, okay? You gotta ignore them, they get like that sometimes.” The bottom lid of his eye crinkled. “Especially right now, with everything going on. But!” And there was that spark again, and Lan Zhan let himself melt right into Wei Ying’s arms. “You can see where I grew up. It’s this nice place in Fresh Meadows, and Jiang Shushu and I dug a huge lotus pond in the yard, and you can see the tree. It’s been there ever since I got adopted. And then we could feed you some of the food we have there before we head out. I hope you like it. You could see my room there too, and the view we have when we climb the roof. It’s not the best in the neighborhood, but it’s the best to me. And maybe we could grab some bubble tea before we head out again, who knows.” He paused for breath, but Lan Zhan was already in that bleary-eyed swirl of anticipation, a day that had yet to happen and was fraught with drama and excitement already. “If you’d like that. Would you like that?”

Lan Zhan could hardly register where he was right now, if he was being completely honest. Everything had happened so fast, and Wei Ying was now curled up against him, chattering away like the world’s most solid brook. Lan Zhan’s hands were braced against his back. He raised one to run it through his hair. He had only touched his brother and uncle’s hair. It was soft, and gave easily beneath his fingers.

Wei Ying was still waiting.

Perhaps it was because Wei Ying had not just been reactive; he had been active, initiating their nap under the tree, their hugs, their kisses, their movie-typical cuddles. He had made Lan Zhan pliant.

Lan Zhan tilted his chin to plant a kiss on Wei Ying’s forehead, losing sight of those gray eyes momentarily. When they came back into view, he told them, “I would like that.”

He heard and felt the hissing smile Wei Ying gave him, the little laugh that accompanied it.

“That’s great,” he said, and buried his face beneath Lan Zhan’s chin. Lan Zhan had no idea what to do with the sudden sparks swelling his insides up with hot air, so he put all that energy into squeezing Wei Ying tighter against himself. Wei Ying made a pleased, purring sound.

“Lan Zhan,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan returned. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: The Queens jumped out.]


	9. Wei Ying's Family Reunion Bash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wei Ying has a family reunion, and you are all invited: Part II.

Lan Zhan was home.

The scent of pine and mists wreathed around him, wrapping him in thick tines that held him. If he turned his head just so and inhaled, he could fade away into the dusk.

It smelled like lotuses, too. Strange. They had no place growing in the cool, misty mountains, but he welcomed it. It was familiar, like it had sat by him his entire life, and meditated along with him.

When he really thought about it, that presence was warm, and it wasn’t until he took that lotus smell by the hand that he realized how cold his own skin was; like he himself was permafrost, after a long summer day of looking for a breath of chill.

Vaguely, there was a thought at the back of his mind—that perhaps his mother was proud. Although he had found solace throughout his entire life with the idea of solitude, especially in a place like this, he realized that, now, he did not walk alone.

And he found that he would not mind this feeling, forever.

As he walked and walked, wreathed in the smell of lotuses that dared to grow in mountain air, he hummed a song. It was slow and steady; he had done right by his own passions, by moving forward and choosing to change his life, like gently but firmly peeling back the fingers of a hand to relinquish the apple sitting in its palm. But if he really, truly wanted to follow those passions more ardently, he would find that the hand had not fingers, but bright pink petals, veined with a darker rose color; that hand was not a hand, but the outstretched set of a flower, opening up to treat him to its brilliant yellow center.

He had expected life to change when he left the safety of these mountains and his kitchen on the Island to Camp Half-Blood; but expecting and knowing for true are two different things. He felt like a new person, but he could still come back and know he belonged.

As he walked that familiar trail, he realized that the scenery was changing; he was leaving these woods.

At the other end, something— No, someone. Someone waited. Their back was turned, the lotus smell intensified, and their hair waved like one long black skirt in the wind. His clothing was black—black jeans, he recognized, a red sash ribbing the waist of his black T-shirt. He could only see the shirt because the wind had skipped around the hem of his purple jacket, flinging it up to reveal not just a waist empty of Lan Zhan’s hands, but a flute clenched tight in the sash.

Lan Zhan opened his mouth to speak, but when that person turned to greet him, he recoiled; there was such malice that he had never seen in those gray eyes, let alone had directed at Lan Zhan himself.

Lan Zhan’s words were coming out of his mouth, but they were like firing blanks: As he lived and breathed and shaped his tongue and lips around those familiar phrases, not a sound was to be heard. He knew what he said, of course, but like a deaf person, he felt the words by the tremble in his mouth.

He could no longer even hear their song.

The lips that he liked so much to kiss spoke words that he could not hear, but the way they shaped and moulded the face they were set in made it clear; these were not words that he would ever want to hear. In desperation, Lan Zhan committed himself to a last-ditch attempt at lunacy: He began to sing their song.

Did it matter that he did not hear it with his ears? But the more he sang, the more he became resolute; the crazier he decided to float away, the more rooted he became in this new reality.

He searched those ashen eyes for a reaction, some kind of softening, but they were blank. He continued singing, because there was nothing else he could think of doing, not even reaching out to hold him; he could never make him something he did not want to do, after all.

He was still singing when he woke up.

“Lan Zhan? Lan Zhan!”

Odd green light flowed over Wei Ying’s cheekbones, mingled with the mango sunrise that came through the windows. He was a little forest of face, but his eyes were very much soft and gentle, and so were his fingers, drifting over Lan Zhan’s cheeks.

Lan Zhan’s mouth was still working, fast and furious.

“You had a bad dream,” Wei Ying informed him, worry laced into that forest. “Are you okay?” He closed in, hugging him tighter. “You’re so weird, Lan Zhan—even when you’re mouthing words in your sleep, you don’t make a single sound. It’s okay to express yourself when you want to, you know?”

Wei Ying was much warmed by sleep, and Lan Zhan shut his eyes, savoring it as he came down, heart and blood slowing. He studied the smell of lotuses as he did, thinking that they were new to being together, and someday he would grow so used to this smell that he would only notice when it was gone.

But it would never be gone.

Wei Ying kissed his forehead, returning the gesture from last night, and pressed them together. “What happened?” he prompted.

His breath was in his face, and thank the gods he didn’t have morning breath. His gray eyes were soft, already smoothing over what he had seen in the forest.

“I was home,” Lan Zhan said. But did he really want to tell Wei Ying what he had seen? He followed his eyes, studying the cornea, the corona of ash wrapped around the pupil, like the deadly puff of a volcano just erupted. “I was with you,” he told him, thinking of the smell, how it was there even in sleep. “But then I wasn’t.”

Wei Ying filled in the gaps himself. “You just got me, Lan Zhan,” he joked. “You’re worried I’ll leave you already?”

Lan Zhan felt his ears heat up. Wei Ying stroked those, too.

“I’m not gonna do that,” he told him, earnestly. “I like you too much for that, and don’t you forget it.”

It was as though Lan Zhan had just landed in a ditch, spewing up craters of mud and water; that was as much as he could describe how muddled his thoughts were at this moment, though the one line he could pick out was him thinking to himself,  _ How did I get so lucky?  _ “I like you,” he told Wei Ying.

Wei Ying laughed through his nose, the air poking Lan Zhan in the face.

“Thank you for liking me,” he said, holding him silently for moments to come.

Wei Ying never once brought up the time, but Lan Zhan knew that he could not go back to sleep, so it must be time to meet with the others. Wei Ying must have known that too; but he never chided him away from his silent safety.

Eventually, Lan Zhan was the one who pulled back, however reluctantly. Wei Ying’s eyes watched him, before the person slowly righted himself.

“We should go,” Lan Zhan said. “We’ll be late.”

Wei Ying snorted. “They can’t even see Demeter without me, so if we’re fashionably late, then they’re just too early.”

Lan Zhan laughed, and Wei Ying fell off the bed. “Lan Zhan!” he said. “Are you okay? Are you sick?”

Lan Zhan had only smiled a non-smile and let out a breath that was harder than the others, and yet Wei Ying was on the floor, grinning toothily at what he had wrought. Lan Zhan collected himself, sweeping over to take Wei Ying’s arm and lift him. “Let’s go.”

They took up their bags—Wei Ying’s family had also gifted him a qiankun bag, though he tucked Recorder of Doom into his sash—and left the sputtering Greek fire lanterns behind them. The sun was just rising over the hill.

Wei Ying was clearly not a morning person; his chatter was segmented, with long, natural lapses of silence in between. It was about this or that: “Lan Zhan, I think I can see the strawberries from here. I have the eyes of a hawk, which makes my name kind of funny, don’t you think?” “Do you think Jiang Cheng has had breakfast yet? He tends to wake up early to practice.” “Do you think he cooked for Jie this morning? She deserves a break.” “Nico stayed in Will’s cabin last night. I hope he didn’t forget anything in the Hades cabin.”

Perhaps before he realized that he actually liked the sound of his voice, Lan Zhan would have told him, “Wei Ying. Silence.” But he let it wash over him, like a lukewarm morning shower.

They arrived at the Big House hand-in-hand, where Nico was saying what was probably an equally sappy goodbye to Will Solace. Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli were also there, and Wei Ying brightened, greeting them with a sleepy wave. Wen Qing and Wen Ning standing in the neatest manner by Chiron, both with hands that fidgeted for different reasons. Lan Huan, already meditating, though he peeled open a single eye as Lan Zhan approached, as though he had seen him, and winked once in a  _ good morning. _

Jiang Yanli...

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“Jie,” Wei Ying protested. “It’s too dan—” And then he seemed to think better of saying it. “You should watch over the camp, so Uncle Jiang and Auntie Yu know at least one of us can definitely keep in touch with them. Jiang Cheng and I will be fine; the prophecy said it’s only us, and the Wens, and Nico, and my boyfriend makes three.” He put an arm around each of them, Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan, promptly exiling everyone else from importance.

That meant Lan Zhan was as important as Jiang Cheng. Noted.

“ _ Although they go—sons of beauty, of lightning, of death—their numbers will add by one,”  _ Jiang Yanli recited, as though Tyson’s big calf were right in front of her. “I’ll be the one. Someone needs to feed you two.” She smiled easily, as though she expected the quest to be one smooth road trip.

“ _ Jie,”  _ Jiang Cheng chided, but she was not having any more of it.

“We’re both the children of lightning, even though the prophecy only said sons,” Jiang Yanli reminded them. “You can’t just have all the fun of discovering your powers all to yourselves, can you?”

Although her little brothers were clearly going to ask her to stay home the rest of the trip, her light voice brooked no more argument for the time being.

Chiron looked them over once more, which, Lan Zhan figured, was his way of fussing over them like a mother hen. Finally, he nodded, and raised a hand. “I bid you well,” he said, as Argus pulled up in the Camp Half-Blood van. “Be careful. Do not forget to rest well when you are in Queens, and pick up plenty of food.”

“Okay, Dad,” Wei Ying said. Because it was Dad and not Grandpa, Chiron looked endeared.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t stupid himself to death,” Wen Qing promised him as she stood back, helping her brother into the van. “Don’t worry.”

“They are in good hands,” Chiron said to her, and nodded to Jiang Yanli as well. Jiang Yanli bobbed her head reassuringly as her brothers helped her into the van, then pulled them in after her.

“I won’t make any promises,” Nico said, even as he kissed his boyfriend on the cheek and hopped in after his brother.

“Be careful, Sunshine,” Will Solace called after him. Lan Zhan wondered if he should come up with a pet name for Wei Ying as well.

Well, if he did, he would do it in time.

“Lan Zhan?” From within the confines of the van, Wei Ying turned his head, large eyes peering out expectantly. Lan Zhan gave him a minute nod, which he saw, and boarded with his brother.

And of course, Lan Huan was kind enough to say anything. Lan Zhan wondered how he was going to handle a whole quest with two whole people who knew what he was thinking. The thought of being perceived was...a lot.

Because Wei Ying had chosen to sit with his brothers, Lan Zhan sat behind them, in a row with Lan Huan and the Wen siblings. Jiang Yanli took up the shotgun, ready to direct Argus to the Jiang home in Queens.

He had a sneaking suspicion that the Wens had maneuvered just so, so that he sat directly behind Wei Ying, but he decided not to investigate further. He just admired the back of his neck and the stray hair that swept there. Did he feel slightly shameless? Yes. Did he care? Also yes, but Wei Ying was his boyfriend, and he was pretty.

They were so far out on Long Island, the trip to Fresh Meadows, Queens would take two or more hours. Argus made it in an hour and a half.

The trees thinned out to gray border walls that barricaded the highway; cars crowded into traffic, and yet Argus wove around them like the last strand of basket material. Finally, Wei Ying stopped chattering at his tired brothers to point outside. “I see the Korean church,” he said. “We’re almost there. Jie, we’re almost there.”

Jiang Yanli nodded, and directed Argus as they closed in on increasingly manic crossroads, though Argus flicked the van deftly into its turns. Lan Zhan both feared and respected him.

Eventually, he made just the right exit into the quiet suburban chunk of New York City, known as Fresh Meadows, home of the-nearest-subway-was-a-thirty-minute-walk-away and drive-thrus-started-to-exist, that little junction of Queens where owning a car was just starting to be a good idea.

“I take the bus because it’s more environmentally friendly, and also because if I do it fast enough, I can get on without paying,” Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan, being from places in the middle of nowhere, had no point of reference for how fast one should act to sneak onto a bus.

“You could probably travel on a hellhound,” Nico suggested. “I could call Mrs. O’Leary right now, and you could ride her.”

Wei Ying’s full-body shudder gave Lan Zhan the incentive to finally put a hand on his shoulder; without looking back, Wei Ying leaned into that touch. “How could you say that to me?” he wept (not really wept) at his brother.

Nico exchanged a glance with Jiang Cheng, and they rolled their eyes in harmonized sympathy. To whom was the real mystery.

The Jiang family house was built more modestly than the hulking mansions owned by Rich Real Estate Asians—as Wei Ying called them—lining Bayside on their way here, but it was still large, clearly meant to house three children and two parents who needed either side of the home to be as far away from each other as possible.

As they exited the car, Lan Zhan took a far-too-eager step forward, only to be stopped when Wei Ying gathered with his siblings—Jiang and Di Angelo—in a huddle, all of them looking up at the house with apprehension. That flare of jealousy in him was starting to hurt, but he tried to push it down.

“Wei Ying has not been home in a long time,” Lan Huan commented, which Lan Zhan knew meant,  _ You are not any less important, but there are spaces that only family occupies right now. _

Oh, Lan Zhan understood that. Perfectly, crystal clear. It was just...why did  _ Nico  _ count as part of the Jiang drama now too?

Maybe he knew more than Lan Zhan did, and he had just been Wei Ying’s brother for a few weeks.

“Mom’s expecting us,” Jiang Cheng said. He and Wei Ying turned to the rest of them as Jiang Yanli took up the responsibility of thanking Argus for waiting on them while they figured out the next steps of their journey. “Let’s go,” he said. “Shoes off in the house.”

Wen Ning nodded enthusiastically, as though he were swearing he would be better at taking off his shoes than anyone, while Wen Qing said, dryly, “I was gonna stomp mud all over your house, so thanks for ruining my plans.”

Wei Ying belted out a too-high laugh. “Ha! Wen Qing, you did a funny!”

Wen Qing frowned, but it was minimal, as though she absolutely appreciated that Wei Ying liked her humor.

For some reason, Lan Zhan thought of Will Solace, back at Camp Half-Blood, waiting for Nico Di Angelo, and that jealousy made a dung beetles’ nest in his chest.

But finally, Wei Ying twisted his head back until he found him. “Lan Zhan,” he called, softly.

Lan Zhan came to him, clasping his hand, which went limp. Wei Ying was breathing light and fast.

Wei Ying exchanged a look with his brother. “They won’t kick you out because of it,” Jiang Cheng promised.

But the both of them glanced at their sister, who caught it and accepted the plea with grace. “I won’t let it happen,” she said, and they relaxed.

“If they do,” Nico said, “you’re welcome to have my room in Tartarus.”

Was that a fucking joke?

The siblings dissolved into giggles, Wei Ying’s hand jiggling in Lan Zhan’s with new life.

Braver now, they approached the front door, and though Lan Zhan felt shunted out, he still swore to himself that he would shield Wei Ying from whatever he allowed to harm him—his family, in this case. Jiang Cheng finished texting their parents that they were home, and Jiang Yanli knocked the door before fishing out the key and unlocking it.

Standing at the door were a man and woman dressed in matching purple, and that was the only thing they had in common. The man had a smile that Lan Zhan could swear often decorated Jiang Yanli’s face, but the woman...well, the woman had Jiang Cheng’s scowl. Or, it would be more accurate to say, Jiang Cheng had her scowl.

“You’re home,” said the man.

“You’re home,” said the woman, flatly.

They noticed the swarm of guests standing behind their children, as well as the two tagalongs their charismatic adopted son had brought in, and their well-established faces amplified tenfold each: The man’s smile became a little more fixed, and the woman’s scowl thinned, but stayed put.

“Please, come in,” said the man.

“Everyone,” Jiang Cheng announced, like a small master of the house. “This is my dad, and this is my mom.” They walked in, remembering their manners.

“Ayi, Shushu,” Lan Zhan said, dipping his head in greeting, his brother doing the same behind him.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning did so as well. Nico, being Italian, simply said, “Hello.”

“That’s not really your father, it turns out,” the Jiang mother said, in a way that said even louder,  _ I told you so. _

Wei Ying jerked his hand out of Lan Zhan’s grasp; wounded, deeply struck in the chest, Lan Zhan sent him a questioning look, but Wei Ying was too busy soothing his siblings with that look they always gave each other, as though speaking telepathically. Lan Zhan was so hurt that he almost didn’t catch the slight tremor in Wei Ying’s hands; so there was the reason he was isolating himself. He didn’t want Lan Zhan to see his weakness.

Did Wei Ying not trust him? No. That wasn’t right...

But he did not have long to mull it over.

Although she had only just stepped back into her own home, Jiang Yanli hurried to the kitchen while her brothers lingered in the doorway, silently offering help while she ran the tasks of making tea and plating snacks by herself. Lan Zhan had no choice but to sit stiffly down with the rest; the range of movement a guest was allowed in an Asian household was limited; he was a pawn, and Jiang Yanli was a queen.

“We heard you’re Wei Ying’s new brother,” Uncle Jiang said to Nico pleasantly. Lan Zhan wondered if Nico was any good at deciphering Asian hospitality, because while he knew he was giving him the standard lip service, Nico was unused to people leering at him with smiles and too much enthusiasm.

Nico took it like a champ.

“I am,” Nico said. “I hope that’s all right. He’s been a good brother to me, and Yanli and Cheng seem to like me just fine.”

What a gods fucking lie, at least for the part about Jiang Cheng, who didn’t like anyone, but the Jiang parents nodded happily along.

“It’s good to see that everyone’s making friends now that they’re out of home,” Uncle Jiang said.

“Including a boyfriend,” Wei Ying’s Auntie Yu commented, gaze landing on Lan Zhan. The piercing of twin voids stared. Lan Zhan stared back.

It wasn’t a disapproving stare, but it was appraising, and Lan Zhan wondered if anyone would be up to par to this person who had raised his jumpy boyfriend, a daughter who was more like a parent than a sister, and an angry grape. He was starting to understand why Jiang Cheng was the way he was.

Said trio came to the rescue. “Tea and snacks,” Jiang Yanli offered, coming into the room and setting the tray down, her brothers trailing after her uselessly.

They made more small talk. Lan Zhan and Lan Huan politely sipped their tea, making way for Wei Ying to sit by Lan Zhan. He wanted to take Wei Ying’s hand and squeeze it, with the way the pressure mounted all around them, but Wei Ying never offered it again.

So he had to content himself with his knee pressing against his.

“We’re starting on our first quest,” Jiang Cheng explained to his parents. “We don’t know how long it’ll be.”

“I remember A-Li telling us about it last week,” Uncle Jiang said with polite interest.

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng said. “We’re going to save Persephone. She’s disappeared, which is why it’s...” He gestured outside, where a thin blanket of snow was still sitting pretty on the Jiang family yard; Lan Zhan thought he saw the lotus pond Wei Ying had dug up with his Uncle Jiang.

Auntie Yu, a learned woman, said, “Isn’t that the wife of Hades?”

Jiang Cheng’s teacup was halfway to his lips; he froze. Lan Zhan caught on a stroke of a second later. “Yes,” Jiang Cheng said.

“So Wei Ying’s stepmother,” she said, eyes sliding to Wei Ying like she wasn’t quite addressing him. Without moving, he seemed to shrink back, and Lan Zhan pressed close, not liking where this was going.

“Ziyuan...,” Uncle Jiang said warningly, but she only smiled, sharp and cunning.

“I am only inquiring as to the state of affairs that make up your own stepson’s family,” she said airily, dragging poor Wen Ning and Wen Qing along for the ride. Lan Huan smiled strenuously.

“Mom,” Jiang Yanli finally spoke up. “We have guests.”

Again, a flash of eyes at Wei Ying, as though barely realizing he was there, before Yu Ziyuan addressed her daughter. “Yes, and this isn’t a family secret,” she said. “I’m just wondering what a havoc someone could cause by simply disappearing.”

Oh. So this is what Wei Ying meant by  _ breaking Asian code. _

“Yu Ziyuan!” Uncle Jiang said sharply, but she returned, “Jiang Fengmian!

“I’m just saying,” she continued, as the Jiang siblings stared helplessly at each other, “that this whole quest is happening because someone was with someone else’s husband, and it’s literally changed the weather. Perhaps Wei Ying will fix this, too.” It was not a compliment.

“With all due respect,” Wen Qing said sharply. “This is a shared venture. Wei Ying’s parents just happen to be involved, but it has nothing to do with him, or else we wouldn’t be questing together.”

Jiang Fengmian smiled uncomfortably in a way that reminded Lan Zhan too much of his own brother. Yu Ziyuan stared lightning and firecrackers at Wen Qing, but only in accordance with Asian code—which meant that she smiled very big at the balls on this girl.

Lan Zhan reached out for Wei Ying’s hand and squeezed it.

“You have a lovely home,” Lan Huan said.

Wen Ning nodded enthusiastically, before Nico decided to cut through the tension with something sharp, like a Stygian steel dagger. “The next step of our quest is to go to the tree in your backyard,” he said. “That’s what Hades told us. We’ll figure out the next steps there, and we shouldn’t waste any time.” He gave an awkward seated bow. “Thank you for the tea. Shall we?”

Clumsily but effectively rescued, the group waded through the impeccably-decorated deep Queens home into a sizable yard. The sudden blast of cold was nothing compared to whatever the Hades had just happened inside, but Lan Zhan never let go of Wei Ying’s hand, and their teammates swarmed around them, so it was all right. In fact, he did not even mind that they were such a crowded group.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Ying muttered once they were out of earshot from his adoptive parents.

Lan Zhan did not skip a beat. “For what?” he murmured back.

Wei Ying fell back into silence, as though they were still in the presence of Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan. It was a far different kind of tired from this morning.

Wen Qing had fallen back into step with Jiang Yanli, wandering around and looking over the hedges. “My brother and I were raised by our grandma, and yeah, we did chores around the house, but I’ve never seen anyone beeline for the kitchen like that,” Wen Qing informed her.

Jiang Yanli looked away. She did not speak for a long while, but when she did, it was simply, “Things were always different in my household.”

Clearly, that was all Wen Qing could wheedle out of her. Lan Zhan turned his attention away to the pond, whose lotuses were just barely starting to creep out before being startled back underwater. Some of the leaves were transparent, hanging in the water, letting Lan Zhan see right through them. Wei Ying tipped a finger underneath one of them, lifting it so Lan Zhan could see the clear veins resting comfortably against the pad of his thumb.

“Lotuses actually grow really easily,” he said to no one in particular, but Lan Zhan liked to think that he was telling him. “You just need to give them space to grow into their full potential. If you planted this in a pot, then sure, they’ll grow, but they won’t get very big.”

“Like you,” Lan Zhan said.

“Hm?” Wei Ying laughed, embarrassed, as though not really understanding but liking the tone in which he spoke. He patted the lotus gently back into place, letting it float. The little part of it that was still green took on water, and turned a silver sheen.

“I wasn’t around when you dug this out,” Jiang Cheng said gruffly.

Wei Ying nodded apologetically. “Uncle Jiang and I dug this while Jiang Cheng was out on a trip with Auntie Yu, to see his grandparents,” he explained.

“You mean he waited for me to leave, specifically so he wouldn’t have to bond with me,” said Jiang Cheng sourly.

Wei Ying frowned. Lan Zhan was caught in between them. “I’d been the one talking about how it would be nice to grow them,” he said. “It’s not like you said you wanted to.”

“I wanted to,” Jiang Cheng muttered.

Wei Ying ducked under Lan Zhan’s arm to hug his brother around the shoulders. “Hey,” he said, “don’t think like that. He cares about you, he just babies me because he sees my parents in me. That’s not the same with you. He just sees you. You’re his own son, so he holds you to a different standard, wants to make you stronger. And if you want something, you should say it. Don’t hold back. Don’t be like my boyfriend, okay?”

He spun to give Lan Zhan a teasing look, because Lan Zhan sure as Hades was swelling in indignation at being compared to an uncommunicative bastard like Jiang Cheng, but he liked his boyfriend as much as he liked his honesty, so he melted fairly quickly. Even when the angry grape snorted, shrugging but not shrugging off Wei Ying’s arm.

“I guess,” said the angry grape.

Lan Zhan wanted to roll his eyes, but the thought of doing another Angry Grape Thing was horrifying.

Anyway, he had to tuck a thought away: Wei Ying thought  _ he  _ was the one who held back, as though it wasn’t Wei Ying who twenty fraught minutes ago had shrunk into himself at the prospect of letting Lan Zhan know he was scared of confronting his family.

Wei Ying swung his gaze back to the lotus pond, and the tree above it. “Right there,” he said, pointing. “That’s the fig tree I climbed the first night I was here. Jie caught me. Right, Jie?”

“Hm?” Jiang Yanli was in a Tartarus-deep discussion with the Wens about this or that, but at her baby brother’s call was in rapt attention.

“You caught me the first night.” Wei Ying pointed. “There.”

A soft smile flitted across Jiang Yanli’s face, different from any of the ones she had pasted across this entire day. “Yes,” she said. “You were so little, but you still broke your leg.”

Wei Ying waved his hand. “Yeah, but it was dumb of me to think your frail little arms were going to catch me. I bet you’re stronger now, though.”

“Not dumb,” Jiang Yanli corrected him. “You were just a kid.”

She glided over in an almost Lan-like way, swiping playfully at his nose. The two giggled in tandem, and Lan Zhan, on top of the jealousy, felt a swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach, like he was catching whatever joy radiated off of them.

To say he was confused at his own feeling was an understatement.

But again, he did not have time to think about it. He’d think about it later, during another long drive with Argus, or during downtime at whatever place they were sleeping tonight. In the blink of an eye, Wei Ying had leapt over the lotus pond and into the tree, shimmying up with spidery-long limbs until he rested in a comfortable fork that, once upon a time, must have fit him perfectly, but he now had to cram himself into. He still made it look cozy, though.

From up there, he found Lan Zhan and waved.

“This,” he patted the branch, “is what I climbed to get away the first night I was adopted. Jiejie actually came out to get me, and she was the only person who could.”

He swayed where he sat.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, but Wei Ying just laughed.

“I’ll be fine, Lan Zhan,” he said. “But I feel like something should be happening right now?” He tapped the tree trunk, like that would do anything. “Should I climb higher? That’s not right...”

“Demeter wants to meet only you,” Lan Zhan reminded him.

“Then.” Lan Zhan would have jumped, if not for the fact that he had a wicked sixth sense for where his brother was at all times, like a GPS tracker, or Apple’s data-mining location settings. “Perhaps we should all clear out.” Lan Huan’s hand came to rest on Lan Zhan’s shoulder, but as everyone pulled back out of the safety of the yard and back inside the house for more Doom Tea and Guilt Sandwiches, Lan Zhan lingered until he was the only one left.

“I’ll see you inside, okay?” Wei Ying said from up high. He shook his hair impatiently from his eyes, clinging to the branch like a monkey. “Sorry you have to...”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

His mouth gaped open, lights flashing in them unnaturally. His jaw worked as he had a lightning-fast conversation with someone only he could see. Although he looked as though he had walked straight out of a horror movie, the tree lit up with a soft warm glow like Christmas, the snow around it melting; beneath the pondwater, lotuses shot up fast, like Lan Zhan was viewing them as a stop-motion timelapse video. They bloomed big, bigger than lotuses should be, until Lan Zhan was sure that he could lay his whole body in one and fall asleep there.

If Wei Ying was having a time-warped conversation with Demeter, Lan Zhan did not want to distract him and call his name. But it happened so quickly in real-time: The glow died down, the tree burst into lush green, and as Wei Ying came back to his senses, he unbalanced and fell.

“Wei Ying!”

The lotuses were there to cushion his fall, but Lan Zhan wasn’t going to stand there and just  _ let him fall.  _ He leaped forward, bouncing between these mega-ginormous petals—they were pink and springy—and finally caught Wei Ying as he plummeted straight into his arms.

He could not see Wei Ying’s face as he stirred; he was hugging him, his face hanging over his shoulder, but he could feel his breathing somewhere around his ears, slowing.

“She gave us a path,” he panted. “Demeter. She opened a path for us to go down to visit my father.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: If you think I took the very specific Queens directions from my own Entire Lifetime, then you are absolutely right.  
> In which my trashy Queens side comes out, and I roast Long Island minimally.
> 
> Sorry for taking a bit longer than usual to update, everyone, but I’m very glad you’re all still reading and commenting with your thoughts; it’s nice to know that you’re all invested. My updates will probably be just about this slow, since my life is going back into its usual hectic state, but I’ll try to beat them chapters out as faithfully as possible! :3]


	10. Winter is Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WangXian get their first date, and Jiang Cheng makes his first friend, ever.

Wei Ying clung to Lan Zhan a little longer, and he could not complain. He hugged him close, feeling his breathing, as Wei Ying finally told him, “Back then...when I fell, it hurt a lot. Thank you for catching me.”

As he said this, a million memories seemed to flood Lan Zhan, none of them his: He pictured Wei Ying as a child, smiling through whatever had scared him his first night of his adoption. Digging a lotus pond with his uncle. But growing up under the scorching eye of his Auntie Yu as well. He even realized then and there that Jiang Cheng, though he lashed out at the world instead of smiling, had grown up under that same eye, but without the love of Jiang Fengmian. At least, not enough for him to show it.

Lan Zhan may have grown up with a strict uncle, but in their quiet house in the mountains, he had never doubted that his uncle loved him, and that his brother would pick up the slack where he needed more affection to be told to him, and not just shown.

As much as Wei Ying had protected Lan Zhan so far—from his overbearing adoptive parents, from bearing the full brunt of whatever family drama he and his siblings were carrying right now—he needed someone to do the same for him. Or at least, someone else, not just Nico and Jiang Yanli.

“Wei Ying!”

The spell shattered open like a burst angry grape, and the couple turned towards their entourage, spearheaded by Jiang Cheng. Should Lan Zhan feel annoyed? Yes. Did he? Surprisingly, no.

Wei Ying pulled away, his smile dreamy. “Jiang Cheng,” he said. “I have the answer.”

“Are you all right?” Jiang Yanli came up behind, brow crinkled.

And Wei Ying immediately remembered to live up to his name. “I think so,” he wibbled, “but I don’t know, I almost fell straight into the pond and drowned!” Wen Qing eyed the giant lotuses he and Lan Zhan were nestled in. “I think I need some bubble tea before I feel better.”

Now even Jiang Cheng’s eyes widened like a puppy’s as he turned to his sister. “I hate taro,” he said.

Nico sighed, and filled out the requirement for a Jiang-Wei-Di Angelo sibling interaction by rolling his own eyes.

An ordeal like that deserved bubble tea, which was also a way of escaping the ordeal of being stuck with the Jiang parents a second longer. Two birds, one stone. They took a walk a few blocks down the street, to a mom-and-pop Hong Kong teashop—“buy local!” Wei Ying said cheerfully, hanging off Lan Zhan’s arm—and waited the next fifteen minutes for the poor staffers to fill out nine orders of bubble tea, whose complexity ranged from Lan Zhan’s simple requirement of lychee green tea with no sugar to Wei Ying’s preference of peach red tea with mango star jelly, to Nico Di Angelo’s hesitant order of an oreo cappuccino.

“This is a frappuccino,” he said, blandly, staring at the final product.

“And only for three dollars! Everyone say, ‘Thank you, teashop!’” Wei Ying said.

“...Thank you, teashop,” Nico said, still staring at his drink, like he was unsure of what to do with it.

It was a much-needed reprieve. Eight very happy teenagers—Nico eventually started taking small sips and smiling very minutely—trotted and tottered back to the house, which Wei Ying cheerfully called Lotus Pier. Argus was still hanging around outside the van when they got there, but Wei Ying handed him his drink.

All hundred eyes blinked in surprise. Lan Zhan felt dizzy just looking at him.

“I didn’t know what you liked, but everyone likes strawberries,” Wei Ying informed him, “and bubbles. Most people like bubbles.”

Argus blinked again, his entire body swirling. Then, he took the drink, the eyes on his hands eyeing the bubbles, his eyes where his...eyes were...staring at the top. Wei Ying stabbed the straw through the plastic cover and watched him take a sip.

Finally, he nodded, still perplexed but appreciating the gesture.

Wei Ying beamed. At least, Lan Zhan thought, Argus wasn’t going to crash them on purpose for making him wait for them.

Jiang Yanli shooed her parents out of the living room, and the only reason they listened was because Nico drew himself up to his not-very-considerable full height and said, importantly, “Seldom do mortals bode well upon hearing directions from the sons of Hades.” Which gave Wei Ying ample space and peace of mind to curl up into Lan Zhan’s side on the couch, legs tucked in as he recounted his conversation with his not-grandmother.

“Demeter showed up,” he said. “And she told me that we can dive into the lotus pond tomorrow morning, and if we just follow the lotus roots, we’ll be able to climb our way to the Underworld and see Hades. She opened up that path just for us, but we should get in the latest by tomorrow morning, because by then the monsters will be attracted to the yard. I think she wants us to have time to rest before we go down there.”

He laid his head on Lan Zhan’s shoulder, in full view of their families as he played with Lan Zhan’s fingers. “She’s really nice about the fact that Hades basically cheated on Persephone to have me. She’s like a sweet old granny in an ageless body, and she didn’t even nag that much at me. But anyway, she told me that Persephone’s been kidnapped. I don’t know if Hades wants me down there, but apparently that’s the only way I can really figure out where she is.”

He shook the plastic bubble tea cup in his hands. “When we get back to camp, after this quest,” he said suddenly, “we should use the strawberries we grow at Camp Half-Blood and make our own bubble tea. Lan Zhan, what do you think?”

 _It tastes cheap._ But he wasn’t sure he wanted to say it to Wei Ying, who was so very excited to show him what he liked about his home at Lotus Pier. But Wei Ying would never forgive him for lying, either. “Cheap,” he said.

Wei Ying sputtered and laughed, caught somewhere between two conflicting emotions. “Sorry we can’t buy Tiger Sugar or something, ya bougie,” he said, poking at Lan Zhan’s shoulder. Lan Zhan twisted and poked him back, in the cheek.

“Guys,” Wen Qing said.

“Ah, yeah, right.” Wei Ying went back to playing with Lan Zhan’s hands, jibbing and jabbing at the little pressure points lining his palms. “So anyway. My grandma-but-not-grandma told me that we can go down and see my dad. The reason the prophecy has been sputtering like a car with a really broken-down engine is because it’s not just Persephone who’s MIA right now; Iris is too. Kind of. She’s refusing to work until Persephone is found.

“She’s _sick_ of Zeus’s bullshit, T-B-H,” he said. “Apparently, the last time Persephone was kidnapped by my dad, he sent Iris to tell Demeter to please stop letting all the crops die, because Grandma was so upset. This time around, Grandma— Sorry, I meant, Grandma-not-Grandma pretty much took matters into her own hands, but she’s still not gonna let things grow without making things hell for farmers. And like, they don’t need that stress. So she told me to go down to see Hades and ‘slap the information out of him,’ in her words.” He lifted Lan Zhan’s fingers in air quotes. “Because he obviously knows why Persephone has disappeared again, so that’s our next step. If anything, we just know that Iris’s absence has been messing with communications again.”

“I thought only messing with the Sybils could mess with prophecies,” Wen Qing pointed out. “Rachel’s a direct line otherwise.”

Wei Ying gave a twisty, dramatic shrug, like a bottle cap. “Well, geeeez, Wen Qing, I don’t have all the answers,” he grumped. “That’s what Demeter told me, I can’t be held accountable for the gods’ plot holes.”

“Maybe they’re going into quarantine with her and playing dice in a basement somewhere,” Wen Ning suggested.

A breath.

Did Wen Ning just make a fucking joke?

The group burst into snickers that tore down whatever tension was left over from almost an hour ago in this room. Lan Huan exhaled a laugh into his sleeve, while Lan Zhan felt his lip quirk. Wei Ying _died_ next to him, nearly spilling his tea; Lan Zhan grasped that hand, steadying it just in case.

When the moment had passed, they were still riding that breeze, smiling easily at one another—in Lan Zhan’s case, he just looked less intense, which they could all have, as a treat—and sipped their cheap plastic bubble tea, which Wei Ying insisted was made with love, and wasn’t that all that mattered?

“That just sounds like we can chill out until tomorrow morning,” Jiang Cheng said. He did not sound pleased at the concept of _chilling out._

But Jiang Yanli was steps ahead of anyone. “We have a guest room in here,” she said. “I’m sure we can all double up in them and fit.”

“Lan Zhan’s staying in my room,” Wei Ying said, the moment Lan Zhan thought, _Oh gods, I’ll be staying in Wei Ying’s room._

“We have only one guest room,” Jiang Yanli said thoughtfully, taking the group in. “Lan Zhan and Xianxian can stay in Xianxian’s room.” Wei Ying squirmed in delight. Lan Zhan’s insides squirmed. “Any of you are welcome to use my room.” Her eyes slid to Wen Qing, the only other girl in the group.

“I want Jiang Cheng’s room,” Nico said suddenly.

 _Um?_ Lan Zhan thought in Wei Ying’s voice.

“I didn’t say you could,” Jiang Cheng said. But he sounded uncertain, as though he were considering whether or not it was prudent to be rude to someone who was but wasn’t really his new family.

“I don’t mind sleeping on your floor,” Nico said. “But you’re right. It’s your room. It’s not like we’re literally teammates from the same camp or anything.” He shrugged.

Jiang Cheng considered that bait for a moment. Then he shrugged back. “Fine, I hope you like terrible carpeting that hasn’t been cleaned in like a month.”

“My favorite,” Nico shot back. What the Hades was going on?

Wei Ying leaned close to Lan Zhan’s ear. “They’re vibinggggg,” he whispered.

Oh, was that what that was? All right, then.

“In that case,” Lan Huan said, “I’ll be happy to share the room with you, Wen Ning.” He turned to Wen Ning, who still looked like he was not over making the whole room laugh. He had told a good joke. The audacity.

Before they started dating, which was very recently, Lan Zhan once had no choice but to hear Wei Ying talk during dinner about a theoretical situation, in which people are stuffed into a car for a road trip; the goal is to make the most awkward combination ever. Lan Zhan, looking at the two now, thought, _Ah._

Well, that was their problem. Or...lack thereof. Goodness knew Lan Huan could use the quiet, and Wen Ning could use the big brother vibes. _Big brother vibes,_ Lan Zhan thought, considering his own vocabulary. Well...he was dating Wei Ying now.

“Hey, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said. “This is gonna be our first date.” He prodded Lan Zhan’s cheek, fairly squealing when he realized there was a bounce to it. “A whole day wandering Lotus Pier with me.”

Well, what else was he going to say? “That’s right,” he said.

“Guys,” Wen Qing said.

“ _Get a room,”_ Jiang Cheng gagged.

—

They did get a room. Wei Ying’s room, in fact.

“We have entered the eagle’s nest,” Wei Ying said importantly, flinging the door open to a surprisingly neat bed, wall, and desk. And the millions of ugly doodles scratched all over the bedposts. What.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said. “People put posters on the walls.” Not that he ever did.

“So you _don’t_ like my doodles?” Wei Ying pouted, damn him.

Lan Zhan studied them before answering, putting the fluttering in his chest to rest. They were rough, of course they were. He wanted to see what Wei Ying could draw on paper.

He traced one of the ugly drawings with his eyes alone, still having not crossed the threshold of the door. The figures skipped and pranced along the posts, all with curved smiley faces. “They have character,” he said at last.

That was enough for Wei Ying. Lan Zhan tried to smile back at him, but failed miserably. Instead, he went back to studying from outside the door, this time counting each shade of purple that the room was. Lavender. Violet. Indigo.

“Are you okay?” Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan paused. Was he? He had literally slept with Wei Ying in the Hades cabin last night; surely being in his room in Queens should be no different?

“You’re nervous,” Wei Ying stated, but it was a slight question, as though he were unsure. He was wading into new territory...in his old territory.

“Yes,” Lan Zhan said. He tried his very best to steer his eyes back straight into Wei Ying’s, but it took effort and time. Wei Ying waited patiently.

He felt that it was moving too quickly. He liked giving in to his passion, and he liked learning about his new boyfriend; he was gaining access to a side that people rarely saw, and he, it turned out, really liked. Wei Ying let himself get nervous around him, even if he did fidget away from him instead of beside him at times. And yet, at the same time, he felt that he wasn’t moving fast enough; he had felt jealous of Wei Ying’s family—his _family—_ what, at least twice today? It was not as though he had told Wei Ying everything and anything there was to know about Lan Huan and Shufu. Was his love possess— No, his like, his _like._ Was that possessive? Wei Ying was not someone who could be possessed, only respected, admired, supported, but free. Lan Zhan was new to this. As soon as he had learned to stop taking advantage of his giving big brother and learned to grow silent after his father had left them, he never asked for anything in his life. Until now. He asked for Wei Ying, and he was not fully sure what to do with having someone he actually got. Having someone who could not be had. And now he was standing outside Wei Ying’s bedroom, where he had grown up.

“Your life,” he said finally, tilting his head towards the pale purple painted wall.

That smile again, bashful and relieved. Wei Ying closed in gently, watching him for any resistance and receiving none. “Yeah,” he agreed. “You can come in.”

He tugged, and Lan Zhan resisted just for a moment. Wei Ying pouted again, about to complain, and Lan Zhan counted down the number of his own breaths before deciding that he wanted to go inside. His boyfriend tugged again.

 _Give me a moment,_ Lan Zhan thought, overstimulated. He took a breath.

He stepped inside.

—

They did not spend long in there, only long enough for a quick tour before Wei Ying dragged him back outside, to admire the twisting mega-lotuses properly. Wei Ying had finished his bubble tea, but Lan Zhan, ever so proper, was only halfway through his cup.

“You drink so slow,” Wei Ying complained.

Lan Zhan felt particularly bold, because he’d already ventured into the belly of the Lotus Pier, or whatever the Hades this mess of a household was. “You drink so fast,” he said.

The way his boyfriend’s eyes widened, his lips parted around a gasp, gave him a savage, petty pleasure. Good gods, what had Wei Ying awakened in him? While he was still gasping round-eyed at the overstimulation of not just Wen Ning, but Lan Zhan making a joke within a couple of hours, Lan Zhan leaned forward and brushed his lips over his forehead.

As he pulled away, those gray eyes were shinier than the crystallized snow around them.

“Are we bonding?” Wei Ying warbled. “We’re bonding? Is it working?”

Lan Zhan nodded. “Mn.”

It was hard to focus on the lotuses afterward, but the sight of the area Wei Ying had fallen out of still demanded their attention. Despite the frost, the lotuses were still pulsating slightly, itching to grow more in what was now a too-small pond—as though Demeter was suffering withdrawal from letting the crops grow, and was taking out all this pent-up energy on Wei Ying and his uncle’s lotuses. Each leaf was big enough to sit a small child in, which is normal for lotus plants allowed to grow wild, but the anomaly was the lotuses, which were the same size, even bigger. Lan Zhan stepped into the yellow center of one. It bounced, but held.

The fig tree was unseasonably green, especially now that the season was apparently the beginning of a Narnia-style winter...or Game of Thrones, which, Lan Zhan had on good authority (Wei Ying’s shouting matches with Nie Huaisang), was about a land where winter was always coming, but never actually came (“We don’t talk about that,” Wei Ying had muttered darkly).

So when the snow fell, it melted on an invisible dome caked around the tree and the pond, like a reverse snowglobe.

And so of course, Wei Ying immediately turned it into his own personal trampoline, flipping backwards onto the lotus pads and bouncing from the petals, stretching his hands towards the green eaves of the fig tree with each jump. “Lan Zhan! Look at me! Quick, look at me!” he called excitedly.

Where else could he look? Lan Zhan could never look away again.

—

Argus surprised them with Hong Kong take-out from the teashop that night, though Jiang Yanli had already made stewed fish soup. She had even been thoughtful enough to not make it spicy, the way it was meant to be eaten, but as soon as Wei Ying saw the extra food, he tugged on her short Camp Half-Blood sleeve, whining, “They can eat that! Just pour the chili oil, I haven’t had it in decadessssss.”

Brave words for someone who had been alive barely a decade and a half and acted like he had lived for not even one.

That was, in the choice words of Wei Ying’s colloquials, a _roast._

Lan Zhan smiled at himself.

But because it was only polite to, they had to sit down with Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan as well, which was...not ideal.

Lan Zhan sat next to his brother, for support. Literally, support—the backs of their chairs were hard and solid, and sitting side-by-side with his brother let him feel confident that Shufu had indeed trained them to be just as ramrod straight at all times.

He decided to be _extra_ and hold Wei Ying’s hand on the table, though. It is impolite to keep one’s hands under the table, after all.

“Jiang-jie cooks very well,” Wen Ning commented, because the girl’s own parents hadn’t.

“She does,” Yu Ziyuan agreed. Jiang Fengmian nodded.

“She’s a very responsible girl,” he said.

Jiang Yanli smiled modestly, her dimples adorable. Lan Zhan knew that she and Wei Ying were not related by blood, but he felt that he had that in common with her.

Wei Ying leaned over to Nico, whispering in his ear, “Can you eat that?”

“I know what a fish tastes like,” Nico hissed back.

Jiang Cheng, sitting across them, held out his hand; Nico high-fived him.

Wei Ying pulled back, pouting. “I know what linguini tastes like,” he sulked.

“You all seem to be very good friends,” Jiang Fengmian commented, pulling them forcibly by the throat back into their Awkward Family Dinner. “Argus,” he said, addressing their many-eyed driver, who was cutting pieces of his fish into neat little cubes that would not irritate the eye on his tongue-tip. “Do you see them often around camp?”

Argus nodded, on account of the eye on his tongue.

Jiang Fengmian paused. “Wonderful.”

Jiang Yanli passed a plateful of freshly-peeled lotus seeds to Wei Ying, who accepted with a whisper of “thank you.”

“Lan Zhan,” he said, offering him some with his chopsticks. Ears blushing, Lan Zhan allowed him to feed him in full view of their family. Lan Huan would never tell Shufu, but he would never let him live this down either. How, oh how, could he stand his older brother’s knowing smiles from this day forward? He could never look at a lotus without dying from embarrassment again.

But he didn’t like refusing Wei Ying.

The Demeter-grown lotus seed burst fresh in his mouth, and he took the time to chew it before Wei Ying fed him another one. After an interminable amount of time swallowing his offerings down like some reluctantly-worshipped god, he took the empty plate from Wei Ying. “Jiang-jie,” Lan Zhan said. “Do you mind passing some new seeds along? I would like to peel them.”

Oh, that mischievous twinkle in her eye was _terrifying._ He had never seen her look so wickedly delighted with anything, and none of those words would have been associated with Jiang Yanli before tonight.

She nodded, taking his plate and filling to its low brim with seeds before passing this responsibility back to him. This felt like a ritual. _Take care of my little brother for me too,_ she seemed to say.

Lan Huan breathed a touch too loud, and Lan Zhan shot him a look. His brother continued to _breathe._

Peeling the lotuses was a good distraction. He dug a fingernail into the surface. Its green surface broke easily under his nail, and peeling back the skin to reveal the smooth pearl of the underneath was easy as breathing. The tasks mounted up, but Lan Zhan was in no rush to be anywhere, shucking each seed out until he presented a gleaming plate of pale green pearls to Wei Ying.

His boyfriend’s eyes were glowing with gratitude, until Yu Ziyuan said, sharply, “It’s good that you’re capable. We’ll have to pass his care off to someone, and it looks like you’re up to the task.”

They already had eye contact; a flash of hurt in Wei Ying’s eyes, but even more, that feeling of being cornered was there. This was not the first time he had endured this.

“Him and A-Cheng both,” Jiang Fengmian agreed, and as Jiang Cheng again twisted Lan Zhan’s heart with reluctant pity, the parents simmered under a foggy, dripping pot lid.

Jiang Yanli cast Argus an apologetic look; his eyes blinked, slowly, as though in sympathy.

Nico cleared his throat, making everyone jump. “Well, Wei Ying’s my new baby brother,” he announced to the room at large. “Ix-nay on the aby-bay,” he said, winking at Wei Ying. Wei Ying blinked dumbly back, unable to even object to such a horrible joke about his name. “And I’ve seen him and Cheng fight and train at Camp Half-Blood. Wei Ying shoots so well, he makes the Apollo kids question themselves.” He looked at the Wen siblings, who as if on cue nodded in agreeance. “I should know, because my boyfriend’s the head of the Apollo kids. And Cheng trained harder than anyone else even before we all found out who his father is. You should see them on the field,” he finished. “They fight like twin heroes, because they’re equally awesome.”

If they weren’t dangerously skirting the edges of Asian code already, the group probably would have burst into applause. As it was, the two stunned parents nodded along, saying, “Yes. Very nice. Twin heroes. Strong. Yep.”

“Don’t forget Jiang Yanli is a great strategist,” Nico added. “She led us to a really sweet victory on Capture the Flag last week.”

Not that the parents seemed to know what Capture the Flag even was, but they nodded and went along with it. “Smart. Great. Yep.”

Lan Zhan knew that he and Wei Ying were both hiding their smiles behind their spoons as they drank their fish soup in sync.

Lan Huan could have this one. Out of the corner of his eye, his brother ate a chopstick twirl-full of Hong Kong spaghetti, the curve of his mouth hidden behind it. “Thank you for buying this, Argus,” he said. The group echoed him.

Argus nodded pleasantly.

—

Before the night became too dark, Wei Ying took Lan Zhan’s hand and led the group to his rooftop, chattering away with his siblings.

Jiang Cheng popped the attic window open, and Jiang Yanli stayed at the edge to help everyone find their footing as they scaled the roof, finding purchase on the light slope.

Wen Ning sat by Wen Qing, of course, but Wen Qing had apparently bonded well with Lan Huan and Jiang Yanli when Lan Zhan wasn’t looking; that club of older siblings clustered side-by-side, with even Nico drifting at the edge. Jiang Cheng stuck close to him, as though they were in a symbiotic relationship of grump and could not bear to be parted.

Lan Zhan sat next to Wei Ying, of course, and dared to put his arm around his waist. Wei Ying, compliant, leaned against him in response. “My favorite part is the moon,” he told him.

Wei Ying had been right; the tallest buildings in the neighborhood were a pair of apartment buildings in the distance, and thus by subjective consensus the highest and best view around. But that didn’t matter. The twin buildings _were_ the view; the night air was cool, and against their better judgment, they had not bundled up against the growing cold; it was not as though it wasn’t still a little warm. And the lights lit up all the same, and the trees budding with flowers were either below them or at eye level.

“This is the view we grew up with,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Sweet,” Wen Qing said.

“Hey, Wei Ying?” Nico said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t try anything too PDA-y. Argus is still watching from below.”

Wei Ying laughed, a soft huff. “We got a room, Nico.”

Nico and Jiang Cheng made gagging sounds in stereo.

Wei Ying nestled back into Lan Zhan’s side, warm; the roof was a mountain, and Lan Zhan felt like its king. But he didn’t want to be a king, he thought, correcting himself. He just liked being right here, with his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: S/O to the small teashop businesses that keep Queens running, yo holla. Yes, the teashop is based off a real place that I still like. Fresh Meadows people know what’s up.
> 
> The details got weirdly personal. Welcome to growing up in Queens, I guess.
> 
> Wei Ying was unhappy with the end of Game of Thrones too. I’m sorry your dragon show ended stupidly.]


	11. The Last Pork Rib Friday

They went to bed that night with the plan to wake up early tomorrow. Wei Ying’s room was flushed the color of a violet in shade, and Lan Zhan could see the burst of pink lotuses outside his window.

And Wei Ying’s bed was not that much smaller than his bed in the Hades cabin; it was cooler and cooler by the day, so he tucked himself underneath Lan Zhan’s chin, curling bodily around him and falling asleep instantly, as though he were excited for tomorrow to come.

Lan Zhan still felt his smile against his neck as he, too, drifted off.

He woke up to Wei Ying prodding him awake. “Sleepyhead,” he whispered, “wake up, wake up. We’re climbing down to see my dad.”

Well, he didn’t need second telling.

Wei Ying let Lan Zhan shower first. When Lan Zhan had come out, dressed for adventure and with his qiankun bag strapped to his waist, the room was empty. Against his immediate instinct to go look for Wei Ying, he sank back onto the bed, staring at the doodles. In the night, they had been vague stencils dancing like constellations around instead of above them. In the morning, with light filtering through the blinds, he saw now the one Wei Ying had been staring at over his shoulder last night: two figures, kissing, with a heart sketched over them.

What a little romantic.

That was how he decided to meditate for the day.

He carried Wei Ying’s qiankun bag down for him, bare feet making soft contact with the impeccably clean carpet rolling down the stairs, arriving to the sound of wind and fire. Cooking sounds.

He followed the smell to the kitchen. So long as the Jiang parents were not around, the new morning, the soft light, drifted him into a domestic dream. It was like their pork rib Friday back in the Big House.

As he crossed the threshold into the kitchen, he thought, he had never lived in a house this full.

Jiang Yanli manned (womanned?) the stovetop, while Nico and Jiang Cheng competed in a match of who could chop their spring onions faster. Lan Huan and Wen Ning were engaging in an actual conversation, so it seemed that they had found each other’s flow after all. Wei Ying and Wen Qing were at odds: Potatoes in the soup? Radishes in the soup? “Doesn’t matter, but you know potatoes are better, and I want this Sriracha to go over it, is that too much to ask?” Wei Ying argued.

Wen Qing looked him straight in the eye, scooped up a handful of Jiang Cheng’s pre-chopped radishes, and dropped it in Jiang Yanli’s pot.

“MY RADISHES,” Wei Ying screeched.

Nico winced, temporarily setting down his knife and disappearing through the backdoor; when he came back, he was dripping with water, hauling a lotus root the size of a corgi.

“Beat this,” he told Jiang Cheng, evilly, readying his knife against the chopping board.

“You have to wash it first,” Jiang Yanli reminded him, and he deflated, looking sheepish.

“But it’s already wet,” he said, but still ran it under the faucet while Jiang Cheng gloated.

Only Lan Huan noticed Lan Zhan standing silently in the doorway; he glanced his way midway through the conversation, giving a slight dip of his chin.

Lan Zhan dipped back, then returned to observing the morning sight. Wei Ying’s hair was wet, and his hands glistened with drops. Did he even need a shower, when he had so clearly started the day with a dip in the pond?

All ingredients were simmering in the pot by the time anyone noticed Lan Zhan people-watching. And _anyone_ was Wei Ying.

“Good morning!” he chirped, bouncing forward while the rest of them jumped.

“How long have you been standing there?” Jiang Cheng said. Caught off-guard, he looked like the emoji Lan Zhan had seen his brother once send, the one that pouted with big eyes. (🥺)

Lan Zhan decided this was the moment for a power move. “Long enough,” he said, delighting in Jiang Cheng’s confused, early-morning baby scowl.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying petted his face, pulling him by both hands into the pleasant steam of the kitchen. “We made tea already. Do you want some? The teashop’s open; we could go out for some bubble tea if you want.”

The idea of drinking ice cold, cheap bubble tea first thing in the morning made Lan Zhan’s stomach scream in horror. “Hot tea,” he told Wei Ying. “Please.”

Wei Ying stood on his tiptoes—for dramatic effect, not for any real need—to kiss Lan Zhan on his early-morning cheek. “Sit down, sit down,” he said. “We told Argus that if we’re still gone by nightfall, then we’re not gonna come back here, so he can go back to camp. The soup is almost done. Who knows when we’re gonna have Jiejie’s lian ou pai gu tang again? We gotta eat road food.”

Lan Zhan tilted his head. “Road food?” Lan Huan politely inquired for him.

“Anything we find on the road, but also trail mix and ambrosia and stuff.” Wei Ying waved a hand, because wasn’t it obvious? “Personally, I wanna hunt a rabbit and roast it on a spit, like in those movies where they’re in the forest turning a chicken around but you never see them eat it. I love rabbits,” he sighed, no doubt thinking about sinking his teeth into its mangled, cooked flesh.

Lan Zhan dissociated himself on purpose, kissing him to shut him up. Onlookers? What onlookers?

Distantly, he heard Nico say, “Am I like this with Will?”

And Jiang Cheng said, “Nope, you’re tolerable.”

Lan Zhan could not quite understand what they were saying, though. He was too busy kissing his boyfriend.

Wei Ying gave him morning chatter when they finally settled around the table; once more, though he spoke, his pauses were longer, and his words came at a regular speed instead of its usual double-time per minute. He poured a mug of tea out for him, setting it on a lotus leaf-shaped coaster—Lan Zhan was beginning to notice a theme here—while he fingered his own mug, filled with coffee that smelled like red pepper. Of course.

“Wei Ying,” Wen Qing said. “Do you maybe wanna refrigerate the potatoes? We’re not gonna need them.”

Wei Ying shot her a dirty look, then finished his sentence like nothing had happened, eyes brightening the instant he turned back to Lan Zhan. “...And then Mario put Luigi on his shoulders and tossed me while jumping, and then we both hit the top of the flagpole and won.”

He gave Lan Zhan a pat on the hand, jumped up to put the bowl of peeled potatoes back into the refrigerator. It was only once the bowl was actually in that he reached for cling wrap, covering the dish inside the refrigerator.

Lan Zhan liked his quirks. He liked them a lot.

“That’s such a waste of electricity,” Wen Qing said.

“So’s all plastic, so now you know what to get me for Christmas,” Wei Ying shot back. “One of those reusable cloth cover thingies.”

“Bold of you to assume I would spend money on you.”

Wei Ying huffed, trotting back to Lan Zhan’s side at the table. “Jiejie! Wen Qing’s making fun of me again. Let’s kick her out.”

Jiang Yanli turned away from the pot, leaning back to relax against the counter. She even moved like a mom sometimes. “She’s a guest,” she told him, tone lightly teasing in the way Lan Huan teased Lan Zhan. “We have to feed her well before we decide on anything like that, Xianxian.”

Wei Ying’s pout was devastated. “‘Xianxian’ this and ‘Xianxian’ that,” he said. “When does Xianxian finally get what he wants?”

“Oh my gods,” Jiang Cheng said. “Shut up.”

“ _You_ shut up!”

“Stop trying to act cute!” Jiang Cheng snapped, lip quivering dangerously.

“ _You_ are the cute!”

This went on until there was finally soup in their bowls.

Now that everyone’s—especially Wei Ying’s—mouth was occupied, Lan Zhan sat in silence. Only his brother could feel the thoughts buzzing off of him, he was sure.

It had been such a good night that it had not taken very long to get to sleep, mind filled with Wei Ying’s slow breathing, the lotuses beneath their feet, and his fellow campers on the roof with him. But now time was up, and they were going to finally descend to Hades. As excited as Lan Zhan was, he needed this moment to parse out that explosion of feelings he had had yesterday.

Jiang Yanli. Made him incredibly fond. Wei Ying loved his siblings more than anything—even Lan Zhan, and that was all right, no, really—and while Lan Zhan loved Lan Huan just as much, it did make him wonder what their relationship would have been like if life with Shufu had been just a bit more chaotic, less rankled with guilt because Baba was dying from it. But was it better that Baba had withdrawn from his own family and stayed in his room all day, distant as frost, or Wei Ying’s aunt and uncle instead let their guilt, their betrayal spray all over their children? He was surprised that Wei Ying had come out with an iota of sanity. Whatever hardship he had faced as a child, it had only made him kind.

But Wei Ying still shrank from the world when it was too much, and Lan Zhan had only been treated to the sight of it because Wei Ying trusted him, and still, even then, Wei Ying shrank from him too. So what was it? Did it make Wei Ying kind, or damaged?

Why not both? Why not somewhere in-between?

His spoon clanked a decibel too loud against his bowl as he swooped for another piece of radish, but no one batted an eye. No one saw him come to a life-changing revelation.

Lan Huan plopped another piece of radish into Lan Zhan’s bowl without saying anything.

And he didn’t want Wei Ying to shrink from him. If Lan Zhan had been raised to express himself like Jiang Cheng, he would have screamed at him, “Why don’t you trust me?” But Wei Ying didn’t owe him anything. But Lan Zhan didn’t _want_ to be owed anything. He just wanted Wei Ying to trust him, and that sort of thing takes so, so much time. He already trusted him enough to see Wei Ying’s doe eyes and shy confessions at night, and that should be enough. _That should be enough._

It was just that he wanted _more._

His own intensity frightened him. _Two days,_ he thought. They had only been together for two days.

He stopped sipping his soup long enough for Wei Ying to touch his wrist.

“Are you okay?”

 _Everything is okay, as long as you’re here._ Lan Zhan twisted his head to look into Wei Ying’s big, gray doe eyes, and although nothing was said, the intensity in there matched Lan Zhan’s thoughts.

Lan Zhan nodded, turning back to his soup.

It was too much.

They cleared the dishes when they were done, Jiang Yanli only sitting back down because her brothers—the old and new ones—gently pushed her back. “You did most of the cooking,” Wen Ning said over Lan Huan’s shoulder. “It’s only right that we do the dishes.”

“That’s Asian code too,” Wen Qing said. “You cook, we clean.”

Jiang Yanli gave a peace-filled smile that only could be described as sassy. “You’re making that up.”

“I’m Asian, so if I make up a code, it’s authentic.”

Jiang Yanli’s laughter rang through the morning as Wen Qing turned to her task, a satisfied smirk on her face.

And of course while sharing the sink, Lan Zhan’s hands brushed Wei Ying’s under the water, and of course it gave him a jolt of happiness to be near him, but Wei Ying frowned.

It was Lan Zhan’s turn to touch his wrist. “Are you okay?”

Wei Ying beamed. “Yes.”

The water lapped at their wrists, waves between them.

And they did not speak from then on. Except for “thank you,” when Lan Zhan handed Wei Ying his qiankun bag, and Wei Ying rebound his hair, setting the tail higher than before.

“Get ready to swim,” Jiang Cheng said to no one in particular, except maybe Nico. Nico pulled a face.

“I fell in a canal once when I was a kid,” he said. “I think I know how to go underwater and stay there, thank you very much.”

“You seem to have lived a very interesting life,” Lan Huan said with polite interest.

 _Yeah, it’s called_ being born a hundred years ago, Lan Zhan thought in Wei Ying’s voice, because he wanted to hear the real thing. He wasn’t afraid to admit it.

Before they all left through the sliding door, however, the Jiang siblings stayed behind, shooing the rest of the team out to the yard. “Just a second,” Jiang Yanli said, with a Lan Huan-worthy smile, and closed the door.

It was so they could say goodbye to their parents, and though Lan Zhan could not hear what they said, he could see them.

For all her reluctance to be anything than the Creator of the Angry Grape— _does that make her a raisin?_ Lan Zhan wondered—Yu Ziyuan, after brief words, tucked something into Jiang Cheng’s hand and hugged him. Hugged her daughter too. Looked in Wei Ying’s direction, narrowed her eyes, and slithered some command out of her mouth that made Lan Zhan want to shatter the glass on his way to Wei Ying’s isolation and be with him there.

Jiang Fengmian said words to his son and daughter, eyes softening. Lan Zhan held absolutely still, watching his face change as he reached Wei Ying. The softness was the same; if anything, there was a greater intensity, and Lan Zhan remembered what Wei Ying had said to Jiang Cheng. _He sees my parents in me._ He clapped a hand on Wei Ying’s shoulder, which was more than he did for his biological children.

Lan Zhan remembered his own uncle, how there had never been a doubt in his mind that he was loved, even if Shufu never so much as hugged him after the age of five, when he was too old to be carried. He remembered how they would meet acquaintances, how they would tease and poke him, how the Taiwanese uncles and aunties especially liked to touch his shoulders in fond gestures. He’d always frozen up, not liking the physical affection.

Jiang Fengmian’s mouth moved in small motions before he released Wei Ying, and the three siblings turned back out to the doors, faces resolute.

Lan Zhan opened his mouth. Began to reach out a hand.

Wei Ying swept by him, stopping mere inches from his back. “Everyone get ready to hold your breaths,” he said. “Here we go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: Lan Zhan’s Aphrodite siblings: Am I a joke to you?
> 
> Writing the Lan bros is such a trip. Given the chaotic household I grew up in, like most people with siblings have, I really, really have to refer back to the literal only pair of brothers I know who’re really quiet and serene even with each other. Write what you know, right?
> 
> Baba = modern-day equivalent of “daddy.” Does not have the weird sexual connotations.]


	12. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang takes a love tunnel boat ride over the river of broken dreams.

Jiang Cheng was sporting a new ring. He seemed stunned. It was unfair that Lan Zhan had to pay attention to him, but Wei Ying was ignoring him right now, and the angry grape was standing right in front of him.

Finally, Jiang Cheng nodded. He tucked it against the knuckle of his middle finger.

It seemed to like it there, which was how Lan Zhan realized it was some sort of sentient weapon, like Bichen. It...hissed?

Lan Huan inched close, and Lan Zhan knew what he had to do. “Does this weapon have a name?” he asked.

Jiang Cheng raised an eyebrow, mouth parted at the revelation that Lan Zhan was willfully communicating with him, before he nodded, recovering quickly.

Lan Huan bristled with pride, and Lan Zhan pointedly turned his head at an angle closer to Jiang Cheng’s ring.  _ There, Ge. I was nice. I socialized.  _ He was trying his damned hardest to think of his brother, whom he loved, of course, and not Wei Ying, who was a thousand miles away.

Wei Ying was right next to his brother, pressing close with a hand around Jiang Cheng’s wrist, impatient to take him away from here. But he wasn’t going to steal his thunder, either. Jiang Cheng considered the ring, which seemed small and light, but with the tension in his knuckles and brow, it seemed heavy as the fig tree. “Zidian,” he said. “Purple Lightning,” he added, looking at Nico.

“Oh,” Nico said. “I thought you were going to say, ‘Mood.’”

Wen Ning laughed. Everyone else stared blankly.

Nico colored. “Get it?” he said, quickly, defensively, a decibel too loud. “Because my brother called his sword, ‘Whatever,’ so my brother’s brother would name his weapon after, I dunno, a meme or something...”

“How dare you compare us,” Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng said at the same time.

They jumped, looking at each other. It was...a spectrum, the way their emotions changed like a kaleidoscope of broken church windows. Disgust, confusion, amusement, mortification. Then shit-eating smiles as they shared a serving of sibling-flavored soup.

“Well, then,” Wei Ying said, figuratively flicking a carrot from his bowl into Jiang Cheng’s.

Jiang Cheng snorted with a splash of potato.

“All right, you two.” Jiang Yanli cut through their shared meal, splitting it evenly between two bickering brothers. “We should go down and greet Xianxian’s father in person. He’s waiting for us. A-Cheng, it’s great that Mom thought it was time to finally give you Zidian. It suits you.”

Jiang Cheng snorted again, less aggressively. The enormity of the situation seemed to fall on his shoulders as he fingered, again, the heirloom. Lan Zhan tilted his head.

“Every weapon has a story,” he deigned to say to Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng, being dense and direct and unable to convolute his thoughts even a little bit, blinked in confusion. “Yes.” He nodded. “What do you mean?” he said, after a pause.

It was actually quite adorable how confused he was. Lan Zhan reconsidered his feelings of annoyance toward him.

“He means he wants to know the story of how Auntie Yu got Zidian,” Wei Ying said. He was staring resolutely at the pond, not even a swoop at the corner of his eye to indicate a glance in Lan Zhan’s direction. “But we should get down there first. Time’s ticking.”

Lan Zhan turned. If he had to confront him in front of everyone, then... “Wei Ying,” he said.

Wei Ying gripped Nico and Jiang Yanli by the wrists, and dove into the water with a smooth breech.

“WEI YING!” Jiang Cheng screeched, immediately streaking in after.

Lan Zhan followed the rest of the group as they entered the water, confused but knowing exactly what had to be done.

Good thing that Shufu had taught him and Lan Huan to swim when they were younger. Lan Zhan blinked, trying to see through the muzzy vision he suddenly had underwater; but even down here, he could see that Wei Ying swam like a fish. In a plume of light that had broken through the lotus pads above them, Nico floundered, but Wei Ying gripped his hand tighter, and Lan Zhan was filled with a sudden frustrated flood of  _ why, why, why? _

What was Wei Ying trying to protect him from now? He had been so transparent—vulnerably so—up until now. Did Lan Zhan do something wrong? What had his aunt and uncle told him to drive him so distantly away?

He swam after him. Closer. Closer...this pond went deeper than it looked, and after a time they were caught adrift on some current that dragged them down. It was the path Demeter had opened for them, down toward Hades.

The water grew blacker and blacker around them, the loose floes of early-morning sunshine from the surface of the water above fading away. Lan Zhan saw the darting shapes at the edges of his vision, and knew it was his fellow demigods; but he kept his gaze focused on Wei Ying, even if his eyes were beginning to sting. He could recognize that slim, confident shape anywhere, he thought, a ribbon of red drifting after him like an afterthought.

As they sank easily into the belt of rapid water, something loomed dark and heavy at the edges of their vision. Lan Zhan opened his mouth to shout a warning, then choked. Lan Huan, at his side, tapped his wrist, and instantly he felt like he could breathe again. He barely had any time to acclimate to the strangeness of being able to breathe underwater before the monster appeared in the form of gaping sharpened teeth in front of Wei Ying and his siblings.

It opened a maw as wide and long as a school bus.

The smart thing to do was to scatter, but Wei Ying had other ideas, of course he did. Without letting go of his siblings, he let his body go limp but for his legs, kicking furiously to rise above the head of whatever the hell underwater terror was trying to eat all four of them whole. Since he wasn’t holding Jiang Cheng’s hand—he only had two hands—he punted him out of the way with a kick. Jiang Cheng was about to open his mouth to scream, then thought better of losing whatever breath he had underwater.

The monster was now looking at Lan Zhan.

He was swimming ahead of anyone else, with his brother just a few kicks behind him. The monster had deep, black pits where there should be eyes, but they clearly saw him. It paused, seemed to sniff, and charged.

Wei Ying spun around, Jiang Yanli and Nico shooting a long, web-like substance out of their hands that wrapped around the monster’s giant body. They pulled. The monster was too round; the ropes were close to slipping off. Jiang Yanli furrowed her brow in concentration, exchanged a glance with Wei Ying, and pulled again.

Barbs exploded from the ropes in a sudden purple light that dug into the monster’s body, holding it fast. Jiang Cheng, floating on the side, had unleashed Zidian, he and his sister combining their powers to trap the monster together. It roared, thrashing as Lan Zhan backed away, reaching for his qiankun bag. Somehow, through the din, Lan Zhan caught Wei Ying’s wild eyes.

_ I trust you. You know what to do.  _ Wei Ying couldn’t say that, that would entail communicating his feelings. But on the battlefield, it was different. It was like he couldn’t help himself.

Well, Lan Zhan could never help himself around him, anyway, so they were even.

And yes. He did know what to do. Bichen materialized in his hand, and he charged forward, stabbing for the center of the creature’s head. If that didn’t work, Lan Huan could follow him up and strike the back, where on most animals the brainstem met the spine. It was one of the things Shufu had trained them in in the woods.

Something silver flashed at the edge of his vision; just as Bichen’s point reached its mark, the monster exploded into dust, blowing them back.

Lan Huan’s spell snapped. Lan Zhan was suddenly left unable to breathe again, lungs closing around water.

He  _ should  _ have begun panicking at this point, but Wei Ying, ahead of him, was barely able to keep a grip on his siblings, and was slipping away. The current carried them faster. They were nearing the bottom.

Lan Zhan let Demeter’s path take control. He asked it for a boost, and kicked his feet out in a gain for speed. He reached out, and grabbed Wei Ying’s foot.

—

They emerged on the other side in a burst of oxygen. Lan Zhan hit something soft and solid.

When he had blinked the rest of the water out of his eyes, he realized that, though he had dropped holding Wei Ying’s foot, Wei Ying had not hesitated to take the fall, flipping them just so that Lan Zhan was in his arms while his boyfriend lay flat on his back, catching his breath.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, and Lan Zhan realized that he was speaking to him. He could have sobbed at the thought.

He slowly eased his own fingers from Wei Ying’s ankle, untangling himself until he could roll onto the ground next to him. Wei Ying instantly righted himself, hovering over him with a discernible look in his eyes, too masked by the cloud of genuine concern as he ran his fingers over Lan Zhan’s face, his arms.

“Are you okay?” he repeated.

Lan Zhan could breathe. “Yes,” he croaked.

Wei Ying looked away immediately, as though Lan Zhan had just released him. His neck was flushed as he so clearly forced himself to concentrate.

“Sorry, Jiang Cheng,” he said. He disappeared, darting off to help his siblings, and Lan Zhan could have screamed from the loss. “I knew you were gonna use Zidian, you’ve been itching to use it since you were like, four, but you weren’t holding my hand either, so I kind of didn’t have a lot of options...”

Lan Huan was at his side at once, helping him up with gentle hands that barely felt like they were there at all. “You two fought well together,” he said, quietly.

Lan Zhan twisted his hands in his lap once, before getting himself to his feet, quitting the beginnings of a habit that would bely any of the worry twisting inside him. “I know,” he said.

“You have been together for a few days.”  _ There are many challenges in every relationship, and this is the first. It will pass. _

“I know,” Lan Zhan said.

“He checked on you with a lot of care just now,” he said.  _ He cares. He just doesn’t know how to show it right now. _

“I know.”

“Some people just need some time.” It meant exactly what it sounded like.

“Ge,” Lan Zhan said.

His brother shut up. When Lan Huan shut up, he somehow became louder, showing Lan Zhan how much he cared and respected his space.

That was perhaps how he should treat Wei Ying. If he thought about it a little more deeply, swimming backwards to last Friday, when he was chopping with Jiang Yanli through lotus roots—overlooking Camp Half-Blood—then he could learn from Wei Ying’s sister. His sister, who never pushed, only supported.

Wen Qing too, because she was busy rolling her eyes as she scanned the territory around them. Jiang Cheng was admiring her, and probably taking notes.

“So I  _ can  _ shoot needles underwater,” she said, proud of her doctor self.

“I was passing the kill to my boyfriend,” Wei Ying scolded her. “You stole his thunder!”

As much as Lan Zhan enjoyed his boyfriend defending his honor, more pressing matters were at hand. He sided with Wen Qing in checking their surroundings. They had dropped by the River Styx. How did he know it was the River Styx? Because it was full of garbage and the broken hopes and dreams of man.

Alongside broken toys, broken furniture, broken everything, swirling around the debris were gaunt, skeletal faces staring forlornly back at Lan Zhan. They were not even screaming. They had just given up.

As always with things that scar— Unsettled. As always with things that unsettled or unnerved him, he chose to study it, understand it. Then he wouldn’t be so scared of it, he told himself. His brother had told him so, and so had his uncle once, though only once.

He was Chinese as well as Greek through Aphrodite. While they decided to wait for Charon to ferry them across the final road into the land of the dead, he thought of Meng Po, the woman who waits at the final bridge into the Chinese underworld, Diyu. She offers up soup to all newly dead; once they drink it, all the memories of the life they leave behind are washed away. Only then can they move onto a new life without regrets, without pain, but without the love and joy that made it worthwhile too. Death doesn’t discriminate.

The River Styx must act much the same way. These were just...remnants. The dead shed their memories indiscriminately, and then are hauled in for judgment.

Lan Zhan must savor this moment as an enlightenment, then. Few people greet death before they’re gone.

Wei Ying was chatting with Wen Ning now, gesturing widely with his hands as though miming a bow. Like the night on the beach, the dark sky above the River Styx clashed with the smile on his face.

Lan Zhan approached him, and tapped his shoulder.

Wei Ying paused mid-speech, twisted to greet him. “Lan Zhan.” That grin grew strained.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, quietly, “can we talk?”

He had no idea how to handle these things, but Lan Huan often asked to speak to Mingjue alone when he had an altercation with Meng Yao. And he felt that Jiang Yanli would do that too. It was the opposite of what Jiang Cheng would do, anyway.

“It’s Charon!”

They whipped around and followed Nico’s pointing finger, towards where the curve of a boat now swept across the river, Charon at the prow. He was a tall man wearing sunglasses, clad in a light pink suit. Lan Zhan was not sure why he had to wear both at once; if he didn’t want to be blinded, all he had to do was discard one.

Wei Ying grabbed his wrist, an unconscious move, as he leaped towards the boat. “Charon!” he called. “My dad would like a free boat ride for me and my friends, please!”

As he came closer, Lan Zhan read his silver name tag: Chiron. If he deconstructed his dyslexia, then this was indeed Charon. From the stories he had heard, he had expected someone in a striped Italian pinsuit.

Unfortunately, all he got was an eyeful of himself and Wei Ying, awkward boyfriends reflected in his shiny, shiny sunglasses.

When he opened his mouth to speak, Lan Zhan felt a sense of deja-vu. He remembered the gray-suited man who had come to him and Wei Ying at Camp Half-Blood, but that wasn’t right. The man from before didn’t look like Charon.

“You’re Hades’s son.” Charon’s voice was cold, like he had swallowed a frosty bubble tea and regretted it, but the way he addressed Wei Ying was flat. Like,  _ oh gods, another one. _

“My name’s Wei Ying!” Wei Ying beamed disarmingly.

“Hades actually took the time to send the message that you were coming, and that I should receive you and Nico.” Charon, for all his ominous posturing, spoke with the faintest hint of a British accent, like on those shows where Americans pretended to be English and failed horribly. “He didn’t say anything about those friends, though. I’m afraid they can’t come along if they’re not dead.” He didn’t sound very afraid at all.

“Oh, but we are dead,” Jiang Yanli said, stepping forward. Wen Qing trailed behind her, as though ready to back her up by dropping onto the ground dramatically. “We are here to cross the River Styx and receive judgment. Personally, I would like to try for a next life instead of Elysium.”

Wei Ying pulled his best mourning face. “Yes,” he said. “She is my sister, and I want her to cross the river without having to wait.”

Charon leaned forward. Lan Zhan had to clench down on Wei Ying’s hand to keep him from jumping in front of Jiang Yanli, whose face was now mere inches for the ferryman’s, her expression impassive. “You don’t smell very dead,” he said. “There are others about to board this boat. I have no room for you.”

Jiang Yanli tilted her chin up. Lan Zhan remembered to grip Wei Ying’s hand in warning; he wanted to see what the older Jiang had up her sleeve.

“I think you might have to smell again,” she said, almost apologetically. “I’m used to putting on perfume in the mornings, and then I was cooking up a storm when I died.”

Charon did not look convinced, but that was only because half his face was obscured. “How did you die?”

“It all happened so fast...” Jiang Yanli outperformed Wei Ying at looking mournful. “I slipped, and fell on my own knife.”

“Jie—” Jiang Cheng seemed to forget that she was bluffing her way through, reaching out to touch her shoulder, to remember she was real. Lan Zhan was not really sure whether to laugh or cry, but he had no problem stifling either reaction.

“What a tragic way to die,” Charon said, with feeling. He took a deep, big sniff. “I smell it on you...you really are dead, godling. You godlings tend to die a little more heroically than that. But there’s still a price to pay for coming across so soon. Think of it as an extra payment for a FastPass.”

“I love roller coasters,” Wen Ning said, helpfully, drawing his eyes away from Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing. Charon wrinkled his nose.

“You stink of death,” he said. Rude.

“Thank you very much,” Wen Ning said, without a hint of sarcasm.

“Okay.” Nico shouldered his way to the head of the crowd, squaring Charon up, even though the ferryman towered over him. “They’re dead, and we’re taking them across. What do you want, Charon? Dad gave you a raise already.”

“A bonus,” Charon said.

Nico rolled his eyes, pulling and counting the golden drachmas from his pockets. Seven. Eight. Nine. “One for each of us, and then some,” he said, holding out the coins.

The chin nodded, the sunglasses catching the reflection of stalactites dangling above their heads. “I appreciate it.” The hand reached out.

Wei Ying darted to his brother’s side, pushing Nico’s hand back gently. “Not so fast,” he said. “We get on the boat first.”

“You don’t trust me?” Charon asked.

“Not really, no,” Wei Ying said. “Think of it as a very generous tip after being entertained.”

Charon retracted his hand slowly, and though Lan Zhan could not see them, his eyes seemed trained on Nico’s palm. “You might want to reconsider how you treat your father’s employees,” he said.

Wei Ying snorted, eyes alight with malice. Lan Zhan wanted to kiss his stupid, snarky smirk right there and then. “I’m just a guest,” he said. “If you really have a problem, maybe you should speak to my dad, AKA your manager.”

Charon’s eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses. Probably. He stepped back, allowing them to board.

The boat rocked underfoot. Once Charon’s back was turned, and the group was settled in a tight huddle in the corner, Lan Zhan cast Jiang Yanli a questioning look.  _ You really are dead?  _ But she merely smiled. In the center of their circle, with everyone staring at her, she tapped Wen Qing’s wrist. Wen Qing pulled something from Jiang Yanli’s back—a silver acupuncture needle, that she stuck back up her own sleeve. She had jabbed a pressure point from behind Jiang Yanli to change her pulse and scent.

Lan Zhan was impressed.

He turned back to Wei Ying, as the filthy water lapped around them. They blinked, and they weren’t alone anymore—the boat was filled with more people, all dead, some with empty faces, some eager. As the boat set off, they all became fixated upon a single point—the far shore, which was glowing a sickly green.

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan pitched his voice low. If he lost focus on his boyfriend, then he would be struck with the creeping realization that he wasn’t supposed to be here, that this was a place for the dead. The thought was nauseating.

Wei Ying was unaffected, being the son of Hades. He turned to Lan Zhan reluctantly, as though he were being cornered. “Mm?”

Lan Zhan had not prepared a grand speech or well-thought-out negotiation like Wen Qing and Jiang Yanli had back there. For the first time ever, he had to follow his gut instead of reading off a multiplication table, or a prerecorded poem on audiotape.  _ Please come back to me. You never left, but please come back to me. I don’t know what your family said to you, and I’m sorry I pulled away from you at breakfast. I hate it when you go through something alone. Let me help you. _

“I’m here,” he said.

Wei Ying blinked, no doubt expecting a lecture, a confrontation, or anything other than what amounted to two (2) one-syllable words that didn’t even need a thesaurus. He tripped over his own breath as he responded. “Lan Zhan,” he said. Blink. Breathe. “Th— I’m oka—”

He stopped, noting the way Lan Zhan was telling him without words,  _ You’re not okay, and I want to know why, but I don’t want to push you. But don’t lie to me. Please don’t lie to me. _

“I’m okay,” Wei Ying said, finally. “But thank you. Okay?” He gave Lan Zhan’s hand a squeeze, smiling tentatively.

It had only been two location changes ago, really, but Lan Zhan could not help but think of the day the prophecy had begun. How Wei Ying had heard some devastating news from his family, distanced himself, and then sought him out without telling him anything. He had just wanted Lan Zhan to be there.  _ Can we play music today? Just the two of us. _

Lan Zhan nodded.

Wei Ying’s smile bloomed in the frail green light, photosynthesizing into relief.

Charon’s face turned skeleton-like the more Lan Zhan blinked. His own chest tightened with anxiety. With Wei Ying’s hand anchoring him down, he took in the scenery: Volcanic soil and mountains that gleamed in a way that should have shed some light, but instead just weighted down the gloomy atmosphere. Black water lapping off for miles. The dead sitting with white jade faces. Grains of volcanic soil on the oncoming shore.

He breathed in, instead, the warmth of the people around him. His brother. Wei Ying. Jiang Yanli. Nico Di Angelo. Wen Ning. Wen Qing. And even Jiang Cheng.

It had taken him the whole ride to relax by the time the boat scraped the sandy shore.

“Good luck, mates,” Charon said, as the group sat still, letting the actual dead off first. “Good luck, I mean, finding any luck down here. Now where’s my tip?”

Nico dropped the drachmas into his palm as they finally got off this hell ride, looking back only to lead them uphill after the spirits of the dead.

Wei Ying, swinging his and Lan Zhan’s entwined hands between them like a child, skipped up to catch up to him. “I’m so glad you brought money,” he said to Nico. “You’re a good gege.”

Despite himself, Nico smiled.

Suddenly, a howl rent the air, and Wei Ying stopped dead in his tracks. Before scrambling behind Lan Zhan with a yelp, clutching at his arms and shaking like a leaf, eyes wide and vigilant as they stared ahead.

“Dog!” he whimpered.


	13. The Spotted One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm Wei Ying! And this is Clifford. My big, red dog.

First of all, the entrance to Hades was just the Lincoln Tunnel gate leading from New Jersey into New York, but green and only half as depressing.

Second of all, he could not see Cerberus, but he could hear a dog by the yelping of his boyfriend, who was latched onto his back.

Wei Ying was only physically here. In whatever world he was in right now, it was just him and the dog. All the fight had gone out of him; he could not even pretend at bravado. As Lan Zhan tilted his head so he could speak closer to his ear, he deciphered the small sounds Wei Ying was muttering under his breath. “Lan Zhan...Lan Zhan...”

Used to sharing what were supposed to be intimate moments with their family members now—Nico was staring awkwardly, unsure what to do, like _Ah, you’re his boyfriend right? Your turn—_ Lan Zhan patted his hands. “I am here,” he told him.

Wei Ying turned his face into the back of his neck, thought better of taking his eyes off from his predator, and tucked his mouth against his shoulder instead, eyes peering over.

Lan Zhan had seen his boyfriend go through a variety of moods and fronts since that first day on the shooting range, when he had been the new boy who slept across his bunk and _never stopped trying to best or annoy him, whichever it was._ But scared had been unthinkable up to now.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan soothed. “We’re nowhere near Cerberus.”

Wei Ying dropped his forehead to Lan Zhan’s shoulder, then snapped back upwards into vigilance again. Lan Zhan held the hands gripping his own orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. The response he thought of, he hoped, told Wei Ying he understood just how much he wanted to feel safe enough to close his eyes when he was around him. “If it will make it less scary,” he told him, “you don’t have to look, and I’ll carry you up.”

Wei Ying peered around his jaw. _Ludicrous,_ he seemed to say, which was less words than he usually spoke in a millisecond and exactly what Lan Zhan said per week.

“What?” he asked.

Lan Zhan repeated the words, probably because Wei Ying found such a long and un-Lan suggestion dizzying.

Wei Ying considered the suggestion, then buried his face back into his shoulder. “No.” His voice was muffled. “I’ll be fine. I can handle this. Jiang Cheng and Jiejie can just beat the dog back.”

“But while we’re walking up there,” Lan Zhan pointed out.

“Don’t be stupid,” Wei Ying scolded into his back. “I can walk on my own.”

Lan Zhan sighed. They had to keep going any day now, and Jiang Yanli had yet to catch up and work her magic. She wouldn’t mind Lan Zhan filling in for her today.

He stooped down, picking up Wei Ying’s legs and clasping them around his hips. His boyfriend squeaked, wriggling like an alive shrimp through slick fingers. “Lan Zhan!” he said, more softly than Lan Zhan expected he would speak. “What’re you doing?”

Lan Zhan was prepared to let him off if he really didn’t want to be carried, but despite his complaints, Wei Ying snaked his arms around his shoulders, settling into the dip of his back. “You really wanna play gay chicken?” he asked. “Lan Zhan, we’re on a quest. Is this really the time?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan said. Wei Ying sighed theatrically.

“Don’t look at me like that, Jiang Cheng,” he whined as Lan Zhan caught up to the unfortunate brothers.

“I didn’t say anything,” Jiang Cheng said, looking like he wanted to say _everything._

“You’re thinking it,” Nico said.

“Whose side are you on?” Jiang Cheng snapped, wounded.

The uncomfortable, tight-chested feeling from the boat faded. Lan Zhan still knew to his bones that he did not belong here—he did not _want_ to belong here, a place of the dead, where life had finished and there was nothing more to existence—but the laughter and bickering around him lightened the load of his emotions. He lifted himself higher, Wei Ying riding his back.

“Charge!” Wei Ying scrabbled a hand behind Lan Zhan, dangling for a moment until he’d retrieved whatever it was he was looking for. “Forward! For Narnia!” He trilled a note. Ah. Recorder of Doom.

A beat. “Louder,” Lan Zhan said.

“Wow, I get a ride _and_ a pass to be obnoxious today,” Wei Ying sang. “All right. Ah, but Lan Zhan. That dog keeps barking, so I’m going to close my eyes while I serenade you. Make sure you don’t crash into a pillar, okay?”

“I promise I will not crash into a pillar,” Lan Zhan solemnly swore.

He took the silence behind him to mean that Wei Ying was undertaking the arduous task of closing his eyes. Cerberus’s barks just...really sounded like an aggressive Rottweiler’s calls being bass-boosted out of a parking lot of cars. Lan Zhan wanted to cover his ears to block out something so annoying, but Wei Ying insisted on drowning the sound out with Recorder of Doom instead.

He did not play their song. He played something else, maybe something Wei Ying was composing. It did not sound like something that could come out of a recorder.

The Lincoln Gate Tunnel was split into three paths that led down three different gates under one yawning archway that said, “YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS.” The dead lined up in a fog of glinting green mist, completely ignorant of the small group of demigods cutting them in line. And each was lined with their own tollbooths and metal detectors, like a cross between an actual pass out of New Jersey and the entrance of a New York City public high school on Halloween. Instead of cops and security guards, they were run by figures in black-hooded robes.

The fastest-moving lane was marked “EZ DEATH.” It was not hard to imagine what that was. Lan Zhan knew it to be the Asphodel Fields, where everyone goes—an open plain of spirits that have lived mediocre lives. If one leads a heroic life, they go to Elysium. If an immoral or truly reprehensible life—which sounded to Lan Zhan like breaking too many Camp Half-Blood rules or murdering someone—then that person is punished for the rest of eternity.

Shufu always told him and Lan Huan: Live a righteous life. Follow the rules and do good by everyone. There are no guarantees in life, except that the rules and norms of society exist for a reason. That was why they took off their shoes when they entered someone else’s home—they were leaving all chances of sickness and filth that caused disease at the door, and keeping their home clean. That was why they never stole: If it was a mom and pop shop, they were preventing people from making rent. If it was a large chain, like a Walgreens, then surely the manager counting inventory would find it missing, and fire or punish an employee. Hardworking people would suffer.

Ever since he had come to know Wei Ying—especially in the Big House, when he had brought up that tiny detail of fair-trade coffee—he had been contemplating if perhaps the rules were flawed. Rules hold society together, yes. But sometimes the manager at a Walgreens would never miss a quart of milk a family poor as the mom and pop shop owners would need, and maybe the manager should not be so quick to accuse their employees for a mistake. Lan Zhan always made sure to not make mistakes.

He made a note to talk more about this with Lan Huan, later. Being at the place of judgment made him feel differently about these bite-sized revelations. It was one thing to fume to Lan Huan about the implications of John Locke and the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, and it was another to meet his boyfriend’s estranged father while he condemned average Joes to stand in the middle of Kansas (for eternity).

He just hoped he and Wei Ying could perform enough heroics to go to Elysium together, even if Wei Ying was bad at upholding the rules of society. The way he did good was...different.

As they neared, Wei Ying still playing the flute determinedly from Lan Zhan’s back, the green mist shimmered and cleared.

He had not been lying or mistaken. Lan Zhan was staring at a three-headed Rottweiler the size of the FDR overpass.

Which is to say, Cerberus was the size of a very small mountain or exceptionally big hill.

Upon his back, Wei Ying froze. Even Recorder of Doom whisked its last annoying breath.

“Oh no.” Somewhere behind them, Jiang Cheng muttered under his breath and picked up his pace, trying to catch up.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said. “Close your eyes.”

“They _are_ closed!” Wei Ying trembled. “But I can _feel_ him!”

“I am here,” Lan Zhan reminded him.

He felt the hard clench of Recorder of Doom being pressed against his neck as Wei Ying leaned into him, clutching his shoulders. He took several heaving breaths to compose himself, Lan Zhan easily supporting his weight.

“What song do I play?” he asked against his scalp. “Lan Zhan, tell me a song. What do I play?”

“What will help you focus?” Lan Zhan asked.

“That’s why I’m asking you,” said Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan considered this. “What you were playing just now,” he said. “The song you’re composing.”

Wei Ying’s arms loosened. “Oh,” he said. “Right.”

Recorder of Doom started up again, Wei Ying swaying gently on Lan Zhan’s back as he approached the behemoth. Wei Ying shook, and his notes broke a few times, but he always continued, not seeing the dog, just listening to the music he made with his own hands. Lan Zhan, hands still supporting his thighs, gave them a squeeze whenever he stuttered.

As they neared, and Cerberus’s barks grew louder, Lan Zhan could feel Wei Ying’s song breaking more and more, until he himself joined in, humming to accompany him. It was low enough so that Jiang Cheng behind him could not hear, and loud enough that Wei Ying was encouraged to pipe away, and from then on not a single stroke broke away from his notes.

Cerberus went silent; because he was suddenly focusing, instead of terrorizing everyone within a mile radius, all three heads twisted towards Lan Zhan, seeking out the living demigods, and the smell of Hades’s son.

The sound of purple grape panting—yes, Lan Zhan’s color association was that strong—came up by his ear. Jiang Cheng had caught up with them, and he was—in sharp contrast to Wei Ying, who was still piping and trembling with fright—looking up at the three-headed dog like he was meeting Santa in the flesh.

“Oh. My. Gods,” he said.

He spread open his arms, like he could squash all of the two-and-a-half-woolly-mammoth-sized monstrosity into his embrace. “Cerberus?” he called out eagerly. “Do you wanna belly scratch?”

The dog understood, since six ears shot up straight at the suggestion. _Belly?_ he seemed to say. _Scratch?_

“That’s right,” Jiang Cheng cooed. Lan Zhan was going to be sick. “Do you wanna pat? Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”

Lan Zhan momentarily relived being flung upside down by Athena snares during Capture the Flag as Cerberus’s tail smacked the ground, the earthquake bouncing him unceremoniously into the air. And Wei Ying just kept playing, legs clenching tighter around his waist. Good on him.

He bent his knees, resisting the urge to let Cerberus fling him around like a pancake, no no. Wei Ying was depending on him, and he was not going to be outdone by Jiang Cheng trying the Change My Dour Personality tactic.

“Be careful, A-Cheng!” Jiang Yanli did not even stop to think about telling Jiang Cheng off as Cerberus rolled over, and her no-longer-irrationally-angry brother climbed onto his belly to stroke the sea of brain fur there. Frankly, it looked like he was disappearing into a Studio Ghibli film-esque hill and being swallowed by the fluffy grass.

On Lan Zhan’s other side, Nico held out a red ball, uselessly. “Well, I mean, I guess,” he muttered, stuffing it back into his pack. “That works too. I GUESS.”

Cerberus’s exciting break in his usual schedule of terrorizing the dead did not seem to faze the aforementioned dead. In fact, though a considerable amount were crushed and dissipated by his movements, the rest of them merely moved around him, streaming in through the EZ DEATH gate.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying had stopped playing. “Hath Jiang Cheng tamed the Beast?”

“...Yes,” Lan Zhan replied, not letting up in keeping Wei Ying astride his back. If anything, he hitched him a little higher to make sure he was secure.

“Well, that’s not something you see every day,” Lan Huan commented to the Wens, which was rather premature, seeing as how in the next moment Hades materialized over Cerberus, looking torn between impressed and annoyed at Jiang Cheng’s fun romp on his dog.

“...Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, after his boyfriend did not react. “Your father is here.”

Hades looked like just a normal man, though he was still sickly pale with the way the green light made him look perpetually at the brink of vomiting. The projection of him at Camp Half-Blood had not been inaccurate at all.

It was just...the eyes. His eyes looked gunmetal-steel-hard, like a burst of shrapnel not yet opened. Lan Zhan swallowed against the lump in his throat. Maybe he had just been a disgruntled dad to Wei Ying, but now, Lan Zhan just saw a man who was capable of cruelty.

“Dad’s here?” Wei Ying evidently opened his eyes, because his first answer was an “ah!” of a squeak at the sight of Cerberus rolling adorably under his brother’s ministrations. His second was, “Dad!”

One of Hades’s man-flattening eyes twitched. “You would do well to address me properly,” he said. His black robes squirmed intimidatingly with the souls of the lost and damned.

“But you are my Dad,” Wei Ying pointed out through chattering teeth. “W-w-what else am I supposed to call you? ‘Fa-a-ather’ makes you sound like a— an old-old man. Which you are, but I d-don’t think you’d appreciate that.”

Hades gave a long-suffering sigh. “Will you come in?” he asked his son, politely. “These are dire days, and I wish Persephone to be back at my side.” He gestured at EZ DEATH.

Nico closed in. “He never talks to me this nicely,” he said helpfully.

But Wei Ying was still shaking, head turned in the general direction of the giant dog.

“Jiejie,” he cried piteously.

“Xianxian, it’s all right.” Jiang Yanli came close, and Lan Zhan resolutely kept his eyes trained on Hades for entertainment. The god really did look old, in that he was absolutely done with the world and his sons.

“Peace, boy,” said Hades. “Cerberus will do you no harm.”

“Jiejie, Lan Zhan, protect me,” Wei Ying wailed, hands fairly breaking Lan Zhan’s entire clavicle.

Hades pinched the bridge of his nose, like, _Are you serious?_

Lan Zhan risked getting fried to a booger-green crisp by glaring at him. _And what about it? You have no right to judge him._

“I’m gonna die,” Wei Ying muttered. “I’m gonna die, and my dad’s the god of death, and I’m already at the gate of death, and I’m gonna be stuck down here, and I won’t even be able to touch my boyfriend, because I’ll be a transparent _ghost.”_

The dad in question stopped trying to block off his airway and came back up for air. “Please stop,” he begged in deadpan.

“Lan Zhan, I’ll miss you so much,” Wei Ying sobbed.

Hades snapped. His fingers, too. With a neat little snap of his fingers, the fuzzy monstrosity kicking his legs out—much like how Wei Ying’s legs were knocking against Lan Zhan’s sides—disappeared under Jiang Cheng. The angry grape fell to the ground with a plop...against an average-sized orange housecat. A hand of some lost soul popped out of his robe, holding itself out for a high five.

“Fuck,” said Wei Ying. His tremors ceased instantly.

 _Indeed,_ Lan Zhan thought.

Wei Ying straightened on his back with an awkward giggle and a patting sound. “Thanks, Jiejie,” he said. “Lan Zhan, you can put me down now. Jiang Cheng! How’s the weather down there?”

The angry grape’s voice was muffled under a confused faceful of cat fur. “Fuck. You.” He was just upset because he couldn’t share the dog food WangXian was force-feeding him with an actual companion now.

Hades sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: This was hard to write, because I know everyone was looking forward to Wei Ying meeting Cerberus. Did I do a good?
> 
> Creds to @detectivewuxian, who actually mentioned the idea of Hades turning Cerberus into a giant cat. He’s housecat-sized now, but will he reappear in Clifford shape? Hm...
> 
> The cat’s name is Firestar.]


	14. Warning Sirens

They were led through EZ DEATH, cutting the actual dead in line, and through the gate. The dead grumbled the whole time, for completely unrelated reasons.

Although Wei Ying had dismounted, Lan Zhan snatched his hand up and held it tight; the son of Hades anchored him to the fact that he was alive.

But then Wei Ying did something that surprised him.

Hades apparently thought it was fitting that a grand tour of Hell was given to his guests before they actually reached his palace. Lan Zhan made a mental note to have a serious discussion with Wei Ying about his parents’ idea of hospitality, because it broke about five out of three thousand rules of Asian code.

They walked through the Fields of Asphodel. There was a hush of unease around them as they walked through an open plain. It wasn’t exactly a Luan Zang Gang—乱葬岗, Shufu had explained to them growing up, is a place where people died unnaturally, and the air is thick with their resentment and unsatisfied vengeance—but somehow it was worse. This was where people who had led normal lives, like Shufu and Lan Zhan’s own parents, went. For someone like Wei Ying, especially, boredom is worse than torture.

So, for living a mediocre life, you were punished with eternal boredom and the lack of feeling—not resentment and pain, not eternal bliss, but understanding that you were nothing. Forever. Like permanent meditation.

Lan Zhan shuddered, and not only drew Wei Ying closer, but looked for the comforting presence of his brother. Lan Huan shot him a look that told him he would smile for him, even if they were literally walking through Worse Than Hell.

As they advanced, only the view of Hades’s dramatic cloak waved like a beacon.

But  _ following  _ was not in Wei Ying’s vocabulary. As the dead wreathed around them, chittering for conversation, Wei Ying  _ talked back. _

Hand still in Lan Zhan’s, he cocked an eyebrow and reached out for the souls, their smoky figures wrapping around his fingers curiously.  _ Who’s paying attention to us?  _ they seemed to ask.  _ You’re not from here, are you? _

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan muttered, but Wei Ying didn’t hear. He was too busy trying to understand the chittering, head tilted to lend them an ear.

Wei Ying worked his mouth, as though looking for the right words, but gave up halfway. He whistled softly.

The spirits shuddered alive right there and then, and they gathered in such a thick cluster of smoke that for a heart-stopping moment Lan Zhan realized that he could not see Wei Ying through it.

Lan Zhan stopped walking completely, but Wei Ying didn’t, casually strolling and striking up a conversation with the local bored dead; Lan Zhan had no choice but to continue, lest Wei Ying detach himself from him.

Then, for a moment, Wei Ying’s breath hitched. He flared up again, whistling excitedly as the ghosts told him something particularly interesting, then waved impatiently in a dismissal. The ghosts dispersed.

Wei Ying turned to Lan Zhan, eyes sparkling, but in that moment, Hades led them out of the Fields of Asphodel into the Fields of Punishment instead.

This place was what happened if a Luan Zang Gang got its way.

Wei Ying was still staring at Lan Zhan, mouth open as though trying to tell him something, but Jiang Cheng tapped his shoulder and pointed. “That’s Sisyphus, isn’t it?”

The tiny figure in the distance was indeed rolling the rock up the hill. He was doing well. He just looked sick of it.

“Yeah,” Wei Ying said distractedly. “Yeah...”

It was as bad as the pictures of Diyu that Lan Zhan would see in the books growing up, but seeing them for real was worse. People being ground under boulders, but still staying conscious as they were turned to fine dust. Being chased through cactus fields. Being sawed apart from the exact middle of their bodies.

He breathed, and Lan Huan pressed close, so he felt safe enough to close his eyes. He didn’t  _ need  _ to see this.

They walked deeper, until the scent of freshly clipped grass and summer barbecues met his nose. He hadn’t realized how much blood he had been smelling up until now.

“Elysium,” Nico said helpfully.

Lan Zhan didn’t need the Victorian mansions and Mediterrannean-bright manors that gleamed around them. His idea of a good home was a small house surrounded by pines, or overlooking a valley with strawberry fields. This was excess. And, he realized, there were so few people.

“It just doesn’t seem fair,” Wei Ying whispered, and Lan Zhan nodded.

It wasn’t that enough people didn’t do good in their lives. It was just that they didn’t do  _ enough  _ good. What was the margin of acceptance into Elysium? Lan Zhan would like to know.

Wei Ying was silent for a moment, and then said, “I’ll talk to my dad about it later.”

Lan Zhan was taken aback. “What could you do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Wei Ying said, sincerely chewing on it. “It’s been like this for years, and I have a little bit more say than Nico, but Hades isn’t going to listen to us even if we both went to him. But maybe he’ll listen if I decide to talk to him in private.” He nodded to himself. “If those people in The Good Place can make a more fair system, then I can too.”

“Would it not be better if you asked him in front of everyone?” Lan Zhan asked. It just seemed signature for Wei Ying to call people out with an audience. But Wei Ying shook his head.

“Dad is better at one-on-one,” he said decisively. “He wouldn’t like losing face and feeling like I’m telling him what to do. And besides, he’s all cur-mud-geon-ly and stuff, but deep down, he’s a good guy, and there’s a certain way you have to remind him of that.”

“You’re good at reminding people when they’re good.” It wasn’t meant to be spoken aloud, and Lan Zhan didn’t even have the space of mind to make a snide comment about putting up with the angry grape. But now it was  _ Wei Ying  _ who flushed neck to cheek. He patted Lan Zhan’s hand awkwardly.

“You’re sweet,” Wei Ying said.

_ No, you. _

“You are,” Lan Zhan ventured.

Wei Ying flushed harder, and Lan Zhan was reminded vaguely of the prattling back-and-forths he usually had with his sister.  _ You must be tired. No, you. Not at all, but do you want food? Yes, but I’ll get you the water. _

That sort of thing.

The scenery changed back into an eerie green, and Lan Zhan could swear he smelled damp blood. The palace of Hades appeared before them, and Jiang Cheng muttered something to his sister about it looking like Wei Ying’s goth fantasy.

It...did look like a classical Greek Parthenon had clashed with a Gothic cathedral. Make it a palace and not a place of worship, and you get Wei Ying’s dad’s home. Wonderful.

Above the parapets, the Furies swirled like vultures.

“Oh, look.” Wei Ying pointed. “Dad, are those the Furies?”

“ _ Wei Ying!”  _ Nico hissed, as Wei Ying did a little jump at his brother speaking to him with such alarm. Even Jiang Cheng’s eyes widened in horror. “You call them the Kindly Ones. You don’t want them to give you a hard time when you’re back here and you’re actually dead.”

“What’re they gonna do?” Wei Ying crossed his arms—a daring venture, as Lan Zhan was still holding his hand—and jutted out his chin. “Wave a Victorian house in front of me? Joke’s on them, I already lived on the street.”

“This isn’t the street,” Wen Qing snorted.

Jiang Yanli looked so tired. Lan Zhan wondered for a moment if being in this place stressed her out too. It was so hard to realize that she also felt out of sorts here.

Before they could enter the palace proper, they passed under a set of bronze gates and the Furies. The courtyard that greeted them was too colorful a bloom to be anything  _ not  _ poisonous. Mushrooms, shrubs, and singular plants that all seemed to have been drenched in radiation from seed and spore. Cold jewels that stood where flowers could have grown. And in the center, tying everything together — the literal forbidden fruit. (Yes, including in Christianity. It was a pomegranate, not an apple, but Wei Ying didn’t care much for arguing about theology, so Lan Zhan had yet to hear him and Nie Huaisang scream about it.)

Each fruit dripped like the light of a ruby, and Lan Zhan had to tear his eyes away. They all knew the story of Persephone. If anything, he focused on Wei Ying, who was much easier to look at, even if he had to stare.

The more they walked, the more Lan Zhan realized the multitudes of trees standing behind this one were also pomegranate trees: It was Persephone’s own orchard, lined with temptation, each pomegranate the size of Nie Mingjue’s fist in particular, gleaming more brightly than the jewels.

“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Ying said abruptly. “Look away.”

Lan Zhan turned around just in time to see Jiang Yanli pulling her angry grape brother away from the pomegranates, in case he...tried to start a fruit rivalry…

The barb died in Lan Zhan’s mind. Jiang Cheng didn’t look angry at the fruit for daring to challenge his grape status. He looked...mesmerized. Eager.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s not like Mom and Dad will care anyway.”

With an apologetic tug, Wei Ying pulled Lan Zhan after himself as he ran to his sister’s aid, to pull Jiang Cheng back. Though he insisted that he was not in fact tempted to steal the fruit and eat it, Jiang Cheng took too many steps toward the orchard. And his brother and sister surrounded him, chiding him.

Jiang Yanli said, “A-Cheng, we have a fig tree at home. Think of that. This isn’t worth it.”

Wei Ying: “Jiang Cheng, Mom and Dad will care.”

Jiang Cheng whipped around suddenly, keeping his sister attached to his sleeve but throwing Wei Ying off. “About you,” he said. Frustration laced his tone. Something was wrong. He was not acting like himself. The anger was a little more personal than usual. “If anything happens to you, Dad will care. He might not care about me, though. Mom might, but who knows? Maybe I’ll lose Zidian, and she’ll be disappointed, and — ”

“Please remember where we are,” Lan Zhan said. He did not want to hear more of this self-pity. Later, fine, he could do it. But not right now, and Wei Ying was trying much too hard to smile comfortingly right now.

There was a red and orange flash; Jiang Cheng yelped. Wen Qing had materialized from nowhere, incapacitating him with two well-placed needles.

“That isn’t him talking,” she explained, the explanation mostly aimed at Jiang Yanli, for whom  _ distressed  _ was not a sufficient word to describe her reaction. “The forbidden fruit from Persephone’s Garden tends to lure people into wanting it, but some are more susceptible than others. Think of it as running into the Sirens.”

Jiang Yanli breathed in. Out. “Thank you, Wen Qing,” she said, softly.

“Of course.”

They finished crossing the courtyard with no further incidents, Jiang Cheng listlessly dangling between Wen Ning and Wei Ying as he came back to his senses.

Hades was waiting patiently for them at the grand doors of his palace, but his face was impatient.

Skeletons lined the doors of the entire courtyard, but the ones here in particular were in US Marine uniforms. They grinned and surveyed the courtyard, no doubt waiting for one of their fellow guards to start friendly fire and launch the Skeleton War.

Hades greeted them with a nod.

A hot wind blew open the doors. A corridor lined their view forward.

Before them was Hades’s throne. The god crossed the room and settled himself comfortably in it, not unlike a panther settling itself in a tree. He observed the group as they approached, as Jiang Cheng stirred awake and wrenched himself free of Wei Ying, mumbling that he could walk himself, thank you very much.

Nico stepped forward first, Wei Ying close behind. By extension, Lan Zhan walked forward with them, but stayed a step beside Wei Ying as the group bowed to Hades.

“Persephone has gone,” Hades said, “and is now in Tartarus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: We got so used to talking about the Luan Zang Gang/ Burial Mounds as a specific designated place in MDZS, that I think it’s easy to forget that it’s literally a term for any place where a lot of people died painfully. Which kind of says a lot about the potential for further MDZS worldbuilding.]


	15. Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sure, give the gremlin resentful energy. What could possibly go wrong?

“You make it sound like she’s there of her own volition,” said Wei Ying, cocking his head. “But unless she kidnapped herself, I don’t know why she would want to go to Tartarus. I’ve heard the stories about Percabeth wandering down there. It doesn’t sound fun.”

Hades tilted his head. “Percabeth...?”

“Oh, that’s what we designated as the ship name for Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase,” Wei Ying explained.

Hades made a face at the name _Percy Jackson,_ but he didn’t seem to want to be irritated when he could instead expend his energy on being confused. “Ship name...?”

“Not the Argus II!” Wei Ying exclaimed, flinging his free hand around in objection. “Like, pairing name. What we call the couple. We smush their names together.” In example, he extended his arms and smushed his and Lan Zhan’s hands together. “For example, Lan Zhan and I are called Layi—”

“WangXian,” Lan Zhan interrupted.

He much preferred observing a roomful of people than a roomful of people suddenly setting scorching, curious eyes on him. He was not an animal to be watched.

“What?” Wei Ying squeaked.

“Our pairing name.” Lan Zhan gave them a beat more to cotton on. “WangXian.”

“Our A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli realized, with a meaningful glance at Hades. “That’s Wei Ying’s Chinese nickname. Our whole family and community call him that.”

Wei Ying was staring quizzically at him, but Lan Zhan was not keen on telling him what “Wang” meant with Wei Ying’s entire family watching.

“A-Xian,” Hades repeated, taking the heat off Lan Zhan.

Ooohhhh, _how embarrassing,_ Wei Ying would say if he saw his own bright, vindicated look of filial love, which he was feeding his godly father now. Well, there was nothing embarrassing about being happy, Lan Zhan thought resolutely.

The tip of Hades’s mouth quirked, like a genuine flower had been watered in this place.

“Guys,” Lan Huan said. “Tartarus.” He said it firmly, but without any bite. Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing looked at him appreciatively. Lan Zhan just knew they would have much to talk about after this quest was over.

“We’re descending into Tartarus,” Lan Zhan guessed.

“Whoa, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said. “Let’s not get excited too soon. Why would Persephone be trapped in Tartarus? That’s pretty Underworld-y, Dad, isn’t that your domain?”

“You think I would let my wife stay in such a place?” Hades said. The very idea shook the beams of his palace.

Jiang Cheng visibly grit his teeth against the sudden earthquake. “He doesn’t mean it like that,” he assured his...stepdad? Stepuncle? Back-up dad?—quickly. “It’s just that you control everything underneath the earth, so there might’ve been a-an oversight. Not by any fault of yours, though!” he added.

“Smooth,” Wen Ning muttered encouragingly.

“Smooth,” Wen Qing muttered, somewhat less encouragingly.

Was Lan Zhan imagining that the quaking started to cease somewhat? Nevertheless, it was still shaking nonstop.

“Tartarus is a god unto himself,” Hades hissed, eyes narrowing. “He was birthed by Chaos. Those who wander there are only those we wish not to die, only suffer. Only the lowest of the low are exiled to such a fate. That is beyond my domain.”

“Which is why you summoned us,” Jiang Yanli guessed.

Realization came slowly, then all at once.

“The man in the suit,” Lan Zhan and Wei Ying chorused at each other, _eureka_ drawn all over the light in their eyes.

“Ah,” said Hades. “I sent my Fury along to warn you to prepare. You still took your time coming here.”

“Well, no one talks like that anymore,” Wei Ying said. “Something something ‘prepare thineselves for mortal peril’? Super helpful.”

“‘Don’t you want to be rewarded for your sleight of hand?’” Lan Zhan recalled verbatim.

“Yes, that.” Wei Ying narrowed his eyes. For the first time, Lan Zhan saw where exactly Hades’s likeness had been passed onto his son. “You’re rewarding me with a weapon,” he said. “But I already have Suibian and Recorder of Doom, so I’ll be fine.”

Hades took a breath.

“You were but a child when—”

“You’d be surprised at the amount of demigod kids who end up on the street.” Wei Ying cut him off as sure as Stygian steel, with his eyes smiling in the same color. “I’m not special, but if giving me something will give _you_ peace of mind, I’ll gladly take it. We have to think about Persephone. Tartarus isn’t a fun place to be.”

Hades swallowed whatever he wanted to say. Before Lan Zhan could ponder the strange response, he outstretched a single hand, eyes rolling over each one of them like a ball-point pen scratching every corner of a piece of paper.

“I’ve heard stories from your ancestors,” he said to them all, “from when the Silk Road was just a trail, not a legend. I will send you away with this.”

Wei Ying stepped forward, expectant.

The ghosts in Hades’s cloak lurched forward, suddenly hungry for whatever they could reach of the living demigod. No amount of morning mountain mist could scrub away the sight of their gaunt faces screaming for a morsel of something they could never reach.

For although they _s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d_ into thin pinpoints, like black needles that nearly pricked Wei Ying’s eyes—though they danced around him, wrapped around him, desperate for something, _anything_ of him that they could devour in a whole—they never did touch him. He closed his eyes, listening to the chittering of their hunger. Lan Zhan’s heart nearly spiked like the ghosts and bursted out of his throat.

Undaunted, Hades outstretched a finger, tapping his forehead. Wei Ying shuddered on the breath. He seemed to struggle within himself, shoulders rolling. His eyes rolled in their sockets behind his eyelids. He struggled to breathe.

By the time he had reopened his eyes, that small, unnerving smile on his face again, Hades was already offering him the red ribbon.

“Your mother,” and Hades’s voice was so soft, like the aftermath of a battle, and just as belonging in a place like this, “said that children are born red. In the Middle Kingdom, there is a word for it. 赤子，an infant. It suits your name.”

Wei Ying took it, mouth open on a question he didn’t have time to ask. The ribbon wrapped itself in his hair.

“It will keep the Stygian breath at bay,” Hades told him, all gentleness gone. “When you need to use it, all you need to do is take it out of your hair.”

“Dad—”

Lan Zhan whipped around; he had, he realized, followed Wei Ying as far as he could, standing almost at his profile, though while Wei Ying was right in front of it, Lan Zhan was still a respectable distance away from the throne.

Nico’s face was dark, as though he regretted not speaking earlier. “That’s a lot of power to give one person,” he said. “Wei Ying’s talented, but it’s a lot even for him.”

“Many heroes have been burdened with power before their time,” Hades said.

“Yeah, like me and my sister!” Nico blurted out. He was shaking. “You can’t do this to him, even if we’re going to Tartarus. What do you think happened to all those heroes who were given too much power when they were just kids? Do you want him t-to—to—”

It must have been in Lan Zhan’s imagination. But briefly, he had seen himself reflected in Nico’s eyes, like he had glanced at him and been scared off by some revelation.

“Hey,” Wei Ying said softly. He had approached Nico this whole time, his presence so unlike him that no one had noticed him leave Hades’s side. He placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “No one’s going to die.” Nico flinched, as though he had been stung.

He was not the only one. Jiang Yanli was clutching the fingers of one hand with the other, and Jiang Cheng was biting the inside of his cheek. Lan Zhan wondered if he tasted blood.

“The prophecy said that we’re going to add on by one,” Wei Ying said. Nico’s bottom lip trembled, firing up for another retort. “We’re not losing anyone. It’s not going to happen. And we’ll stay together. We won’t fail so long as we’re smart, and together.”

Nico’s eyes shifted over Wei Ying’s shoulder, glaring at their father. “You can’t do this to him,” he said.

“Hey.” Wei Ying pouted gently, hand lightly slapping his older brother’s cheek. They stood nearly at the same height. “If I need help, I’ll ask you. You’re my gege now, remember? And besides, you gotta trust me too. Because if I die, Jiang Cheng’s gonna kill me. And if you die, well, Will’s gonna take my Recorder of Doom and stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

Nico wanted to trust him. He really didn’t. He frowned almost to match Wei Ying’s pout.

“Please do not stick your weapon in strange dark places,” Hades said behind them, sounding genuinely concerned, “unless it is in the River Styx, but I would rather you not deal with the consequences of such an act.”

But Nico’s glare did fade a little as he nodded. Jiang Yanli swept forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders.

“If that will be all, Lord Uncle,” she said to Hades. “We would like to have some guidance in finding Persephone in Tartarus. A map, perhaps.”

“Tartarus is ever-changing and shifting,” Hades said. “But when Persephone is in an hostile place, she is quite changed. All you have to do is look for a sign of life.” He snapped his fingers. A _feeling_ rippled through Lan Zhan’s body, simple as a misplaced breeze. “You will be immune to the poison in the air there. You will enter through the Doors of Death.”

Those were _horrible_ instructions! “Pray tell,” Lan Zhan said, the thought already mulled over in his head, “what exactly is the _sign of life?_ We would like specifications.”

Lan Huan’s face, at the corner of his eye, said, _Oh shit._

“Seeds and sprouts,” Hades said unhelpfully.

A swooshing sound as the Furies flew in.

“Come along now, children!” one of them cackled, face withered and twisted. “Off to the Doors of Death!”

—

Finally, Wen Qing asked, “Lord Uncle?”

“Well, it’s true, even if it sounds strange.” Jiang Yanli shrugged.

They were a sorry group of heroes trying to keep their collective shit in one piece. Lan Zhan exchanged a look with Lan Huan—a determined one, one that told Lan Zhan, _This is what you’ve been waiting for, a worthy quest._ Lan Zhan’s throat welled now, torn between Nico’s premonition and his own brother’s reassurance.

 _No one is going to die,_ he thought, firing up from his center. _Wei Ying is not going to die. I will not let it happen._

For someone who had been given a Terrible Power Beyond Imagining, Wei Ying seemed his usual chipper self, chatting up the Furies while holding his sullen godly brother around the shoulders. “You seem to answer to Hades a lot,” he said. “Is Persephone, like, your mistress?”

“We answer when she beckons,” hissed one of them.

“But not when she is so far away,” one of them cackled.

“When it is summer and spring, our duties are to our Lord Hades only,” said another.

“Sounds like you don’t have to answer to her, huh,” Wen Qing said. “How do you find her when she calls you from a far distance?”

The wrinkles in the hags’ faces multiplied. Forget Yu Ziyuan. _They_ were the real angry raisins. “We follow the stench of life,” said one.

“Like the stench of disobedient little children,” said the second.

“Where the ground is coldest, she is there, _surviving.”_ The third rolled its eyes. Ah, yes. Living. Appalling.

When the Furies were looking the other way, Wen Qing and Wei Ying exchanged a low-five. Then Wen Qing looked appalled at what she had done.

“Nice going, sis,” Wen Ning said, not sarcastically.

Wei Ying gave Lan Zhan a look so triumphant, he tingled. “Victory!” he whispered, front teeth showing. Warmth blossomed over the center of Lan Zhan’s chest.

“Over getting information, or low-fiving Wen Qing?” Lan Zhan asked.

“Yes,” Wei Ying said.

“Here we are!” the Furies announced.

Framed in Stygian iron, the doors of death were a looming set of elevator doors. They were sleek and silver, black decals twisting a large forest of design in its center, each stroke like it was thoughtfully placed there by a calligrapher designing Greek jewelry.

But strangely, it looked common. Like the lift of an unnecessarily fancy hotel.

Lan Zhan loved a bit of normalcy before going to Worse Than Hell.

Jiang Cheng twisted Zidian over and over on his finger. Lan Zhan reminded himself that he quite liked the people around him—even Jiang Cheng, if he was what made Wei Ying and Lan Huan smile.

“This is better than what Percabeth had,” one of the Furies commented.

“They _fell,”_ shrieked another in delight.

This was more of a couplet of a statement, so the third was left with nothing creative to say. “And lived,” it said, lamely.

That’s right. Percabeth had lived. WangXian would live too. And Lan Huan. And Wen Ning. And Wen Qing. And Nico. And the rest of Wei Ying’s unreasonably large family.

“Lan Zhan?”

He jolted, guilty of being caught pondering Wei Ying’s entire existence again. “Smart and together,” he found himself saying.

Wei Ying tilted his head, lip jutting out—in that order—in wondering and wonderment. “Smart and together,” he repeated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: Apologies for the long absence. Meatspace life got me slammed. BUT, in my absence, I have finally grabbed an analog form of writing (pen and paper), and plotted out every diabolical plot twist in this fic. Strap yourselves in, AHAHAHAHAHAA.]


	16. Buddhism 101 with the Goddess of Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lan Huan develops a new path of demigods.

_ Ding. _

Breathing hurt.

Lan Zhan tried not to panic. His brother’s hand touched his elbow, and he understood: Meditate. Meditate while walking.

The air may be toxic to demigods, but Hades’s blessing lingered in his skin, and he could feel it protecting the delicate nerves in his human body. But it still  _ hurt. _

He tried to think of the evergreen trees. After his uncle, his brother, Wei Ying, and Lan Zhan himself passed away and ceased to be—and revisited Hades, this time for good—then he would be bones beneath that soil, and those trees would still be breathing.

That did the trick.

Even though his heart still clenched hard on itself, like his whole chest had been sucked clean of air, he was still breathing. Anxiety, his brother had told him it was.

“Wei Ying,” he said, lowly. “The river.”

Hades’s curse muffled the sounds coming from the river. But he could still hear them, even though he felt that he was hearing them through noise-canceling headphones. The river itself did not look like anything—it flowed like smoke; but if water were made of sound, and Lan Zhan could see sound, then...well. Lan Zhan was looking at it. Hades’s sleek, screeching cloak had been less threatening.

He swallowed.

Enough. They had just gone from underground to deeper underground. They had gone this far; best to find Persephone, and finally leave.

But if he didn’t, then...then, he really was good for nothing but loving his boyfriend. He really couldn’t protect people. And then, he thought frantically, if he couldn’t even save Persephone on his first quest, what about his father? He couldn’t save him. He wouldn’t be able to save his brother, either, or even his boyfriend. And if he, a son of Aphrodite, couldn’t even save the person he had chosen to love, then Wei Ying—Wei Ying would—

“Lan Zhan.”

Wei Ying’s voice was close to his ear; he was breathing heavily, like he was also combating the thoughts. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan... Don’t listen to it.”

Lan Zhan snapped out of it, remembering to listen to the evergreen trees in his mind. The river sounds faded back into muffles, smothered by Hades’s blessing.

Jiang Cheng’s voice; Lan Zhan had never been so relieved to hear Jiang Cheng out of the din: “It’s the River of Pain. We shouldn’t go near it. If you get close, it’ll try to make you feel guilty about everyone you ever wronged, even if you didn’t do it on purpose. It’ll pull you into a trance.”

Wei Ying smiled painfully. “Joke’s on them. I can’t remember  _ anything  _ I did wrong. I’m way too nice to people.” He patted Lan Zhan’s hand. “Right, Lan Zhan? I’m pretty good to you, right?”

_ I’ll protect you,  _ Lan Zhan thought, his chest squeezing painfully. Him, and their friends.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, what’s with that look?” Wei Ying drew back, pouting playfully. “Save it for Persephone when we find her, for making us worry about her so much.”

_ Wei Ying, always trying to lighten the mood.  _ Lan Zhan was learning not to be fooled when he pulled away or came too close. It didn’t change how much he liked him, only showed him all the ways he was trying valiantly to protect him too, in his own way.

Around them, people seemed largely unaffected, if not unnerved by the river that was probably screaming something like,  _ IT’S YOUR FAULT PERSEPHONE’S DOWN HERE  _ at them. Was it only him and Wei Ying? No...Lan Huan’s jaw was clenched just so; he was caught up in a guilt trip too.

“Ge,” he called.

His brother caught his eye, and smiled. It looked strained.

“It’s a good thing Hades muffled out the sounds for us too,” Wen Qing remarked. “That was nice of him. We should go. Nico, Wei Ying. You two are more related to Persephone than anyone else here. Which way seems to be a good place to start looking for her?”

“Well, for starters,” Nico half-muttered to himself, peering in the distance. “We’re supposed to look for a sign of life.”

“Everything’s dead,” Wen Ning said.

“Oops,” said Wei Ying.

“I know that demigods typically go through life-endangering quests,” Wen Ning said, “but to be in Tartarus? At least Hades had the good grace to put us in handicap mode. But...” He never stopped scanning the horizon. “If we’re near the River Acheron, why haven’t we seen her yet...”

Lan Zhan suddenly remembered exactly who  _ her  _ was, but by then,  _ she  _ had appeared before them. Save Lan Huan and Jiang Yanli, everyone took a step back.

The snap of Zidian burned through the air as Jiang Cheng stepped back up to join his sister. In the same instant as the lightning, Wen Ning had whipped out his bow and nocked an arrow, aiming it. Wei Ying lurched forward as well, shaky hands set as though he was ready to fistfight the primordial goddess of the night herself.

Lan Huan gave an approximation of a bow, like Shufu had taught him to do on their temple days. “Nyx,” he said respectfully.

She stood tall, not enough to be a giant but a superhuman, in her chariot, looking like she was spun out of oblivion itself. Her hellhounds, lashed down to the chariot like horses, snarled and snapped.

_ Wei Ying,  _ thought Lan Zhan. It was incredible how his boyfriend was standing his ground, shaking violently, significantly behind his siblings. Lan Zhan touched his elbow.

Wei Ying retreated behind him too.

“Would you like to eat us?” Lan Huan asked politely.

“Very much so,” said Nyx, the goddess of night. Her breath was like a chill. “I suppose you shall volunteer first.”

Lan Zhan’s blood spiked. “No,” he said loudly. “He doesn’t. I go first.”

“A-Zhan!” Lan Huan said, but Lan Zhan refused to look at him.

“I’m the youngest,” Lan Zhan said, stepping forward, Wei Ying still latched to his back. “I always go first.” Yes, when it came to who got the first and sweetest serving of jiuniang. When it came to who got to stand on a stool and stir Shufu’s water ginseng soup. When it came to sacrificing himself to Nyx...well, Lan Huan couldn’t always be the one protecting his brother.

The hellhounds, as though sensing Wei Ying’s fear, lunged forward, jerking short only when their leashes ended. Wei Ying shrank, but Lan Zhan only felt stronger. He could protect his boyfriend. His brother didn’t have to rely on him anymore.

But Lan Huan quickly cut that notion short. “You’ll have to forgive us,” he said. “My brother here would want to go first, but since he’s the youngest, you should save the best for last, right?”

Oh.  _ Oh.  _ Lan Huan wasn’t trying to buy them time by offering himself up.

“If you start with me,” Lan Huan continued, “you’ll actually find that I taste like water ginseng soup and jiuniang. Those are some of the finest specialties in China,  _ and  _ guess what? We’re  _ vegan.  _ Vegans taste the best.”

Nyx seemed confused. “Ve...gan?” she said. It certainly put a chip in the ice of the whole scary, I-am-the-literal-Night vibe she had going on, but since Lan Zhan had just met Hades, he didn’t really feel like being intimidated by even her.

“We don’t eat meat! We’re like Kobe beef,” Lan Huan explained, like it was his absolute pleasure to be eaten by a carnivore. “The best beef in the world. The cows graze on the best grass and live off beer and get hand-messaged. Most humans are dying for a taste.”

“Dying for a taste,” said Nyx hopefully. Even her hellhounds had stopped to listen, their ears perked up.

“However!” Lan Huan raised a finger.  _ Everyone  _ followed that finger, as though it were the most fascinating thing in the (Under)world. Even Lan Zhan, who tried not to roll his eyes. So this was what Lan Huan was doing. He felt a little silly for almost ruining his brother’s plan by trying to sacrifice himself; it was because of Lan Zhan’s own feeling of inadequacy, that slight lingering feeling that being Aphrodite’s child meant he had something to prove. He liked Wei Ying, but he loved being needed by Wei Ying. And it would be nice if, for once, his brother could need him too.

The hellhounds panted like puppies, which probably gave Jiang Cheng a boner or something.

“There’s only so much of me for a good appetizer,” Lan Huan said seriously, “and if I’m not the best appetizer you’ve ever tasted, then the rest of the meal won’t be as good. A good opening food is super important. That’s why they always serve us a bowl of soup first at Asian restaurants. Right, Yanli?”

“Right!” Jiang Yanli nodded. “That’s also why you buy a gnocchi soup at Olive Garden. There’s no Italian feast without it!”

“Ah,” Nyx said, understanding, which drowned out Nico’s “How dare you.”

“Then,” Nyx said, eyes gleaming. They were stars in a dark winter sky, like what Lan Zhan would see in his home in the mountains. Except they contained none of that familiar sense of knowing where he was. “We will tear you apart!”

“But why would you want to do that?” Lan Huan asked.

“Why would I want to do that?” Nyx repeated, as if in a daze.

“I could taste bad,” Lan Huan said.

“I could taste bad,” Nyx said. “I mean— You could taste bad.”

“So the whole meal wouldn’t be worth it,” Lan Huan said.

“Not worth it,” she said.

“So why bother? There’s always better food here, that you  _ know  _ will be good,” Lan Huan said, as though Shufu had possessed him.

“Other food. Better.” Nyx nodded, as though ready to fall asleep. Her star eyes drooped, and her dogs whimpered, falling under the spell of Lan Huan’s charmspeak.

Lan Huan smiled again. It was the look he wore when he really wanted to leave a situation with impossible adults, like Wei Ying’s aunt and uncle. “You should lend us your chariot and hounds,” he said. “That way, you don’t have to share your next meal.”

“No share,” Nyx said, slipping off her chariot.

“Oh no,” Wei Ying squeaked behind Lan Zhan, clearly having cottoned onto Lan Huan’s scheme.

“No.” Lan Huan, without moving a muscle in his face, gestured with a low-held hand at everyone to get on the chariot,  _ now. _

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan whispered. “Wei Ying. Can you do it?”

“ _ Fuck,”  _ Wei Ying almost sobbed.

“On my back,” Lan Zhan said. “Close your eyes.”

And he did. They repeated their trick from E-Z Pass, Wei Ying clambering onto Lan Zhan’s back as they walked past Lan Huan. As Lan Zhan walked by his brother, they exchanged a peripheral glance and the tiniest fraction of a nod.

“‘M sorry,” Wei Ying mumbled against Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

“What for?” Lan Zhan said back, walking past the dogs. Their ears twitched, but their attention was still on Lan Huan.

Nyx, on her own two feet, drifted closer to Lan Huan. Closer...closer...

“No share,” she said.

“Wen Qing,” Lan Huan smiled. “Now.”

Nyx snapped out of it, rage spreading her body open in waves of darkness as Wen Qing threw her needles—“YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS, LITTLE DEMIGOD,” she hissed—and the hellhounds came back to life, howling and barking in confusion, twisting around as if wondering why the smell of food was coming from inside the chariot. And Wen Qing’s needles struck, each wave of darkness calming like a sea from a storm. “You dare trespass,” she shrieked, but her body was already drifting to the ground. “I’ll have you first,” she swore at Lan Huan. “You will be the first I eat, son of Aphrodite.”

But Lan Huan had already leaped onto the chariot with them and pulled out his xiao. Mercifully, he landed at Lan Zhan’s side, while Wei Ying shivered on Lan Zhan’s back. “Hold on tight,” he said grimly, and raised the xiao to his lips.

The song was smooth, like riverstones. The chariot lurched forward, nearly throwing them all off as the hellhounds lunged towards their master. But as the music began to take effect, they calmed, instead choosing to bay towards the roof of Tartarus.

“Hold onto me,” Nico said to them, and leaped onto the outer lip of the chariot, taking the reins. Wei Ying reached out a small hand and grabbed the back of his shirt. “This way!” Nico shouted at them, and the chariot swung around—nearly unseating them again—as they left the swath of primordial night prone on the ground behind them and raced off deeper into Tartarus.

Lan Zhan could not help it; he grabbed Lan Huan first, pressing his idiot older brother close so he wouldn’t fall off this frankly terrible mode of transportation.

Somewhere behind them, Jiang Cheng laughed. “Wow, Lan Huan,” he said. “I can’t believe you pulled a Buddhist philosophy on the fucking goddess of night!”


	17. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lan Zhan is an insomniac. It's either convenient or inconsiderate, depending on how you look at it.

Tartarus rushed by in a noxious cloud of gas, and Lan Zhan’s eyes streamed as he breathed through Hades’s blessing.

Although Lan Huan was busy piping and Nico directing, Lan Zhan sidled up closer to his brother so he could whisper in his ear, so he could hear him perfectly: “I’ve never seen you play mind games with anyone but other campers.”

“Am I just limited to campers?” Lan Huan asked with genuine amusement. The dogs growled as though regaining sentience, and he jammed his flute back against his lips.

“I thought you were really going to sacrifice yourself,” Lan Zhan confessed reproachfully. “Shufu never taught us to use Buddhist philosophy to calm ourselves and educate our friends, not use it as a weapon.”

Lan Huan thought for a moment. Lan Zhan already knew what he was going to say before he popped away from his xiao. “But if it can be used as a negotiating tactic, why not? Not everything in this world is made for only one use.”

Lan Zhan huffed as his brother went back to piping away, the hellhounds roaring through this hellscape.

It was incredible how much everyone else could run their mouths while Wei Ying was still cowering silently from the hellhounds. As they drove through bumpy lands trying to burn them to death, Jiang Cheng filled Nico in on exactly  _ what  _ Lan Huan had done.

“I’ve seen Annabeth Chase trick her way through monsters with mortal logic,” Nico said as he pointed right, “but this felt different. It was less ‘fight amongst yourselves for the first piece of me’ and more ‘but do you  _ really  _ want to eat me’?”

“Yeah, he basically Schrödinger’s Cat’d it,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Whose cat?” Nico asked.

“Oh, right. Nineteen thirty-five,” Jiang Cheng said. “That was the year there was this scientist who thought, ‘Let’s put a cat in a box,’ but it’s not really dead or alive? That one?”

Nico was silent for a long time after that, until he said, “I was a baby back then. You’ll have to explain it to me.”

“Ah,  _ ah,”  _ said Jiang Cheng. And he explained the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment. As he spoke, Lan Zhan tried to imagine all the delightful conversations they could have with Nico about being (technically) eighty-eight years old and still having the youthful capacity to process change. He had always felt that there was something out-of-place about Nico, but the decades away that he was born was too big a distance to wrap his mind around. 

He was  _ much  _ older than Shufu.

“Basically,” Nico said at last, after simultaneously carefully listening to Jiang Cheng’s nerdy rant and steering their deathtrap away from careening into several craters, “because she’s stuck in indecision forever, because she’s scared of finding out and being disappointed. She’s scared of the potential that you won’t be worth her while.”

“Yeah, like that!” Jiang Cheng brightened considerably under the hellfire. Cool. It didn’t illuminate his cheekbones or in any way make him seem...well, feral. Like a bloodhound. Like it drove him buckwild when someone understood him, someone who wasn’t his sister and maybe his adopted brother. It reminded Lan Zhan uncomfortably of the look on Wei Ying’s face when Hades had claimed him.

“You’re worth my while,” Wei Ying said suddenly. He was not looking at Jiang Cheng, Nico, or Jiang Yanli. He was not even saying it loud enough for them to hear.

Only Lan Zhan heard it.

From his back, Wei Ying curved his neck over his, and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll take good care of you, just like how you take good care of me.” He nudged him with a foot, in order to emphasize their position.

_ But I  _ want _ to protect you,  _ Lan Zhan thought.  _ I am done with being protected by my brother. _

Even though they were literally racing against time in the worst place in the world, he still found a moment of peace.

—

Wei Ying fell asleep on Lan Zhan’s back as they went, which was when Jiang Yanli observed, “Oh—A-Xian fell asleep. It must be six forty-five. We’ve been driving for a while.”

“And yet no sign of Persephone,” Wen Qing said. “Not even a single snowflake. We should rest, or else we won’t be able to go on.”

“We can sleep when we’re dead,” Jiang Cheng said.

Wen Qing rolled her eyes. She seemed wide awake.

“That’s adrenaline,” Wen Ning piped up. “We’re all running on adrenaline right now. If we don’t wind down, we’re eventually going to crash. Both literally and figuratively.”

Maybe it was because of the perpetual dark circles under Nico’s eyes, but he looked as though he wanted to argue, and then realized he preferred sleep.

As they slowed, Lan Zhan spotted something that broke away from the orbule, fleshy appearance of the landscape that made him feel that they were tiny ants inching around a placenta.

“Ge.” His hands were occupied with holding Wei Ying secure; he tilted his chin towards the obsidian booth-like structure peaking over the top of a crater.

He alerted Nico next; with a sharp swerve that nearly sent Lan Zhan flying, they neared Hermes’s Shrine. It matched the description that he had heard about around camp: Cut black marble around a dark stone altar, still smooth but shattered as though dropped from a long height.

And it had been. Lan Zhan looked up; Tartarus, supposedly, was a cavern they were inside of. And yet, he felt as though he were...outside. But still claustrophobic.

But the crater was an enclosed space too. And when he burrowed himself under, he realized just how stressed he had been the past day—and that they had been questing for a day. Instantly, a weight lifted from his shoulders, as though Hermes himself had strapped wings to the stress and turned them into sandals.

“Jiang-jie,” he asked, as they slowly lowered Wei Ying’s still-asleep form into the pit, “Wei Ying is...”

“Out like a rock,” Jiang Yanli said. There were hollows under her eyes, though Lan Zhan wondered how much of it was due to the light. “He’s a deep sleeper at this hour. You should remember, right? You slept across each other in the Hermes cabin for so long...”

That seemed as far in the past as Nico’s birth was. Said brother of Wei Ying joined them. Nico had checked all their perimeters and passed out ambrosia and road food; living up to his eyebags, he curled onto his side and snuggled up to Wei Ying. Lan Zhan must have been just as tired, because he could not even find it in himself to feel jealous. It was adorable, and they were like bunnies.

“A-Zhan.” Jiang Yanli smiled, nudging him so that he laid back; he went boneless. “You should knock out. The more rest, the better.”

“Thank you,” he found himself saying, still looking for the ceiling of Tartarus. He was  _ bone- _ tired, but according to his research, monsters stayed away from Hermes’s Shrine; and the gas irritated, but did not hinder, his ability to breathe.

Distantly, he heard Wen Qing, Wen Ning, and Jiang Cheng’s voices, urging Jiang Yanli to sleep.  _ She should,  _ he thought.  _ She doesn’t have to worry about the rest of us so much. _

Wei Ying snored softly. Lan Zhan was about to join him.

—

Except he woke back up.

Tartarus was too overbright, and technically, it was still morning. Even Lan Zhan’s exhaustion could not overtake his internal clock. He grasped for Wei Ying’s hand without moving otherwise—because he could hear voices. He shut his eyes.

“Huan-ge. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because A-Zhan cares about you a lot. And I shouldn’t interfere with your relationship, but he has a very particular way of communicating. If he doesn’t say this out loud, then he never will.”

So that was why he was pawing at dust. Wei Ying was sitting with Lan Zhan’s brother to the side, chatting.  _ Ge,  _ he thought,  _ what the Hades are you up to? _

A stone dropped into his stomach, heavy as one of the columns of the shrine.  _ Did he tell you about our father?  _ That wasn’t a story he was ready to share. But then again—he would never be ready to share it.

It was silent for so long that Lan Zhan thought they had fallen asleep.

Then, Wei Ying said, “What about me? Am  _ I  _ communicating with him? Well, I should be, right? I told him about my parents. I—”

“You pulled away from him.” Nico’s voice joined the fray of Wei Ying’s self-conversation. “When we all met your aunt and uncle. That’s not your fault, but everyone could see how hurt he was.” He paused, as though chewing through a particularly tough feast of words. “You blocked him out, and he was just really trying to be there for you and help, but he didn’t really know  _ how.” _

“Well, yeah,” Wei Ying said, sounding flustered. “I didn’t  _ need  _ help. It was  _ my  _ family. He didn’t need to get involved.”

Nico continued chewing. Then, “I’m your family now too. And we’re all in this quest together.”

“And your sister?” Wei Ying’s voice was rough, as though begrudgingly curious. “We’ve heard about how brave Bianca was.”

Lan Zhan thought about Chiron in the Big House, watching Wei Ying following Rachel Elizabeth Dare outside.  _ I have always done what I could to ensure their safety… _

But Nico’s older sister had died on a quest just barely after coming to Camp Half-Blood and becoming one of Artemis’s huntresses. And Nico had never been the same.

But if he was once as sunny and innocent as Wei Ying could be on good days, then even tragedy had not managed to stamp it out. Lan Zhan had seen the way Will Solace cooked Nico into reluctant mush around him.  _ Sunshine,  _ Will Solace called him.

Lan Zhan knew, as he thought of those two, that Nico was thinking how to best respond to Wei Ying without being...well, mushy.

But if he was scared of showing that he cared, then he was a bad gege. So Nico finally said, “I miss her. She was the best big sister. Suddenly living without that is hard. So, everything I learned about being a ge— A gege. All of that, I learned from her.”

“Best gege,” Wei Ying argued. Lan Zhan could  _ feel  _ Lan Huan nodding vigorously.

—

Lan Zhan drifted in and out as his adrenaline crashed. Should he give in to sleep, or should he stay awake and meditate?  _ Give in to sleep,  _ he decided. It was better to respect Wei Ying and Nico’s privacy.  _ If he wanted to tell me any of that, he would have already. _

But maybe Wei Ying needed some gentle nudging, the way Nico did?

When his attempt at sleep failed, he realized that the soundscape had changed. Now, Wei Ying was talking to Jiang Yanli and an unfamiliar voice.

“Make it sound more reassuring,” Jiang Yanli suggested. “But maybe don’t mention Mom’s affair outright.”

“I don’t understand how you’re still this patient.” The unfamiliar voice sounded frustrated, and that was how Lan Zhan realized it was Jiang Cheng. He was not used to hearing him speaking so low. “We’re already down here. They’ve already met our friends. If we don’t talk bluntly now, then when? What’s the worst that could happen at this point if we say something and make Mom and Dad mad?”

“I don’t think they would divorce,” Wei Ying said slowly. “Yu-ayi is super traditionalist, and people would talk. She would  _ hate  _ that, and that’s not easy on Jiang-shushu either.”

“Jiang-shushu would probably worry about you first.” The sting in Jiang Cheng’s voice was unmistakable, but whether it was for him or Wei Ying, Lan Zhan could not tell.

“But he’ll worry about all of us equally, like he always does,” Jiang Yanli said firmly. “They love us, they just don’t know how to show it, and they show it to each of us in different ways.”

“You know.” Wei Ying was spelling something out. “ _ Technically,  _ it wasn’t an affair. It’s not really an affair if Jiang-shushu knew about it already, right? We can just...spin it to sound good. Because it kind of was a sacrifice they both made. They just...didn’t realize that it would create so much resentment between them.”

The sound of scribbling.

“Don’t fucking read over my shoulder like that— Ow!”

“You spelled that wrong, though—”

“What are you, Clippy?”

“All right, you two.” Jiang Yanli used her Big Sister Voice. “A-Cheng, you can just fix that to look like an A. Xianxian, come sit next to me.”

“Okay, Jiejie,” Wei Ying simpered. Gods, he was adorable.

More scribbling, punctuated with an exasperated sigh.

“Done.” The crinkle of paper, silence, and then Jiang Yanli and Wei Ying’s satisfied hums.

“Zeus should contact you two sometime soon, you know,” Wei Ying said, finally. “I have a feeling.”

Lan Zhan, for some reason, pictured Jiang Yanli more than anything: Her icy, wry smile as she said, “Yes. I do have a few questions to pose to him. About what he did to our actual dad, for instance.”

Actual dad?

That thought was almost swept away when the siblings bid each other good night—“I’m not five, Jie, I can sleep on my own,” Jiang Cheng muttered as she cooed that Wei Ying had his own boyfriend to cuddle with now—and Lan Zhan’s hand was back in Wei Ying’s, and then...and then... 


	18. Numbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this world, Lan Zhan sees Wei Ying's death ahead of time.

He needed no preamble this time.

“Ma,” he said, “why are we really here?”

Aphrodite—dark-haired, gray-eyed, beautiful—contemplated the answer with no sense of surprise.

“My son,” she cooed, “I am not scheming, if that is what you think.”

She was teasing him. Lan Zhan  _ hated  _ being teased. “I am being serious,” he grunted. “Ma, with all due respect, we still haven’t found Persephone. We may very well be dragged around for a...,” he didn’t want to say the words, “bonding mission.”

Aphrodite was silent for a long time then. Lan Zhan did not play nice with her; he never took his eyes off hers, even when they flashed back into their normal gold to resemble his. No wonder people found looking at Lan Zhan unnerving, he thought to himself. So he grilled his mother and knew it was effective. He wanted answers.

His mother mused aloud, “Clever. My son is clever.” Slyly, “If I am not careful, Athena may steal you for herself.”

Lan Zhan stayed stubbornly silent.

Aphrodite was closing in, sweeping him from head to toe. Love radiated from her, and though he accepted it willingly, he would not fall into its sway. “A long time ago,” she said, wistfully, “Persephone and I fell in love with the same man.”

Lan Zhan did not know where this was going, but he already knew he did not like it. “Adonis,” he said flatly.

“Beautiful, pure Adonis,” Aphrodite sighed agreeingly. “He died in my arms.”

Lan Zhan respectfully held his silence as she gave the long-dead Adonis a quick silent vigil. When she was done mourning in place, she murmured, thoughtfully, “In time, you will follow the trail of his blood. Think of Persephone’s silence and her disappearance as penance for his death.”

Lan Zhan was not stupid; he could do basic math. Penance? That did not sound like the act of someone who had been kidnapped and spirited away to Tartarus. That sounded like someone who went into seclusion, an idea he knew well.

“She came here willingly,” he said.

Aphrodite tilted her head, so subtly it was as though she had merely blinked. “Clever,” she murmured in clear tones. “My son is so clever.” She reached out a hand, stroked his cheek. He did not flinch; rather, he stewed, in one part contemplation and two parts dread. He wasn’t paranoid enough to be a conspiracy theorist, but he was beginning to understand that perhaps this quest was part of some bigger plan, and there were things his mother was still not telling him.

All the better to wheedle it out of her.

Unlike Lan Huan, he had refused to inherit their mother’s charmspeak, so he switched tactics. “I’m on this quest because I’m supposed to learn a lesson,” he said matter-of-factly.

Aphrodite brightened. “Ooohhh, yes!” She clapped like a teenage girl whose crush was finally out of earshot. “My A-Zhan is a diligent student.”

Lan Zhan leaned into her hand. It felt the way, he supposed, the embrace of a mother would taste if he were still a teething infant. “When we find Persephone,” he asked, “the challenge will not be to fight an enemy to retrieve her. It will be to convince her to stop her seclusion and come back to the mortal world.”

“And what, my son,” she said, “would she possibly be tempted to return to?”

The mountains, Shufu, Lan Huan, his friends. “Hades,” he said. “Her husband. Her mother.” He could not imagine her coming back for Nico, although Nico deserved better than a reluctant stepmother anyway. It dawned on him. “I must learn about relationships that transcend time.”

She clapped again. “Such a big vocabulary word,” she said. “Yes. You and Wei Ying...you are such a good pair.” Her gaze softened, and suddenly she became ancient and elegant—Venus herself. “You must learn the different ways to feel. Passion. Affection. Loss. Hate. Every child of mine learns a lesson in love. This is yours.”

Something struck him, with a resounding clang. “Loss,” he repeated.

His mother realized that she had said too much. Suddenly, the no-landscape around them burst into flames.

The prophecy had said they would return with one more among their number.  _ Although they go—sons of beauty, of lightning, of death—their numbers will add by one. _ Jiang Yanli was already that one more person. What if someone among their numbers died on the quest? What if someone died, but the numbers of their returning party stayed the same, because Persephone would return with them, thus replacing the one who died?

Loss...Wei Ying  _ cannot be my lesson in love. _

He had not realized he whispered it until he found his mother’s eyes again, sympathetic.

“I wanted you two to come together,” she said, “but not like this.”

“Wei Ying,” he had said.

“You cannot kill him,” he said now.

“It was decided by the Fates,” she said. “I cannot do anything about this. No god can. I do not want you to hurt like this, A-Zhan.” She meant it. “But these...these are growing pains. They will make you stronger.”

“They’ll just make me hurt.”

“A-Zhan,” she said, and it sounded like,  _ I’m sorry.  _ “This cannot be changed. All mortals die eventually. But I am told—that that is what makes your lives so precious.”

_ I can hide him from you. I can protect him. I can take him somewhere the Fates can’t touch him. _

But she heard him, anyway. “If any of my children could work a miracle,” she said, “I believe you could. But what is the meaning of an existence where one’s love traps you?”

The flames cackled in his ears. But perhaps they had found Persephone after all. Although the burning closed in, Lan Zhan’s veins ran cold, turning his blood to ice.

—

At some point, Wei Ying had crawled back into his slot between Lan Zhan and Nico, and the next thing Lan Zhan knew, he was opening his eyes from a particularly restful sleep.

If only he had been born a regular mortal without godly parents. If only even his worst nightmares were just anxiety-born nonsense. But this had been a message from his mother, who predated existence.

He woke up with a stone in his chest. No amount of meditation or mountain mist could clear it away.

Wei Ying was slumbering away, practically sprawled all over his chest. Lan Zhan could only clasp him.  _ I just got him,  _ he begged his mother.  _ Do not take him away. _

They lay like that for so long, it was as though Tartarus itself had fallen away. Wei Ying shifted.

Maybe it wasn’t Wei Ying who would die.  _ But I  _ like  _ my friends.  _ Maybe he was overthinking. Maybe loss was just...a breakup.  _ A-Zhan. All mortals die eventually. _

He did not notice Wei Ying tracing sleepy fingers into his chest for some time.

“Lan Zhan.” He looked down, and Wei Ying was peering up at him. He looked like he had not slept enough. “Your heart is beating so fast. I didn’t know that was possible for you.”

“Go back to sleep,” he said roughly. “Wei Ying.”

His response was pouting, and burying his face into Lan Zhan’s chest. “Can’t,” he muffled. “Been trying. Talk to me.”

Lan Zhan listened carefully. Everyone around them breathed evenly, still asleep. Even Lan Huan. The nightmare had woken Lan Zhan up earlier than their established five AM. “What do you want me to talk about?”  _ I will talk about whatever you want. _

“Tell me a story.”

Well,  _ that  _ was impossible.

“I...don’t know how,” he admitted, shyly. Wei Ying popped back up with big eyes.

“ _ Three Little Pigs _ ?  _ Fengshen Bang _ ?  _ Journey to the West _ ?” he counted off frantically. “Really, Lan Zhan? How did you learn to read? How did you learn to  _ speak?” _

“I studied the history of the Brothers Grimm. I read about the symbolism of Nezha killing the Ao Guang’s son,” Lan Zhan recited, dutifully. “My shufu taught me to never be like Sun Wukong.”

“Your shufu’s just anti-monkey and anti-fun,” Wei Ying said.

“...You’re right,” Lan Zhan said.

Wei Ying gaped at him, evidently expecting him to defend his family down to his last fervent breath. But Lan Zhan did not need to prove anything about his family to Wei Ying. But as far as he had seen, it was different for Wei Ying. He reached out, tucked a loose strand of hair back behind his ear—as if any of Wei Ying’s hair could stay in place more than three minutes—and listened one last time for any infrequencies in their crater of sleeping breaths.

Nothing.

“Wei Ying,” he said, so low he was afraid even Wei Ying would not be able to hear.

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying lowered his voice to a mocking rumble. And laughed. The rock did a flip in Lan Zhan’s chest.

“I love my uncle and brother very much.” There was, Lan Zhan thought, not much need for a preamble into this conversation; this should suffice. “I can still admit when they are wrong. I do not need to stand in their way and protect them.”

“You were so grumpy when your brother tried to defend us against Nyx, though,” Wei Ying pointed out.

_ Caught in a liiiiiiiie. _

“I have...a tendency to feel like I need to protect them,” Lan Zhan admitted. “But I should trust them too. They are strong, even when I don’t understand the way they are being strong.”

“Well, I understand you,” Wei Ying said. “You’re so strong, Lan Zhan. Even if you weren’t the son of Aphrodite, you’d be so strong.” He poked his cheek, then his bicep. “I picked a good boyfriend. I don’t care if you don’t become a doctor and can’t bring in the family income. Aren’t I a good boyfriend too? I’ll do all the work.”

His laugh was a knife.

“Wei Ying.”

But Wei Ying would not stop laughing or babbling. His voice rose higher and higher, and Lan Zhan could only panic.

“You make me happy, Lan Zhan,” he said, laying back down with a smile. “I don’t care what anyone says. I’ll protect you like a good boyfriend, even if you do have to carry me sometimes.”

Lan Zhan could only lie there, close to tears, as Wei Ying’s laughter woke the rest of the group up, and they no longer had the privacy for a heart-to-heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: Making up for the long lapses with a quick update. The stuff you get out when you get a bit of free time, hehehehe~ Thanks so much to everyone for sticking with me!
> 
> Soooo, the angst I promised in the tags about twenty chapters ago. 'Tis here. I was about to end on a cliffhanger, but I decided to be a nice person. Next chapter will, hopefully, have more action. I am so ready to write some slashy slashy stabby stabby.]

**Author's Note:**

> Come holler at me on Twitter @kwakooly! Watch me write my fics at 3AM while giggling at myself.


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